The Prince of Roses
by Silver Vaporeon
Summary: PART SEVEN IS UP! Everyone has secrets, yes. But how many times would they turn against you? or your friends? the whole world? ...or turn out not to be your true secret at all?
1. discovery

**The Prince of Roses**

by: Silver Vaporeon 

@-}---

James watched carefully as the water splashed into the small squirtle bottle he owned.  It was usually used for watering his Vitreebelle but recently he had lost his old watering can.  He watched the measuring scale on the side carefully and let go of the button after the water reached the 9 centimeter line.  He looked towards the desolate playground where he and his friends had claimed as their sleeping area for the night.  According to the local clock tower near the church, it was midnight when they stumbled in half-starved into the city.  What time was it now? He sighed and he noticed his visible breath.  He shivered despite of himself.

He saw Jessie huddled on the playground slide hugging Meowth close to her to warm herself.  

It is cold, he thought as he left the water fountain and headed for his backpack that lay by the benches with the squirtle bottle in hand.  Without warning, an icy pain gripped his chest and his legs crumpled from below him.  He was unconscious by the time he hit the ground. The water from the watering container spilled onto the walkway and froze instantly.

Jessie awoke the next morning chilled to the bone.  Female Team Rocket uniforms were never designed for comfort.  Meowth sneezed and opened his eyes.  His jaw dropped.  The whole area was covered in frost!

"Man! That was quite a cold night, wasn't it Jess?" Meowth asked. "Jess?"

Jessie was already by the benches brushing the frost off her backpack.  She opened it and looked for the heat packs.  She found some, broke a few open and jammed them down her boots.  Her feet toasty, she sighed contently.  Two more were put into her gloves.  Her torso felt frozen so she looked into James' open backpack and put on an extra jacket of his.  She felt a snag on the jacket as she was pulling it out but managed to get it out and zip the open backpack.

"Hmm?" she said puzzled. "Where's James?"

"Dunno," Meowth replied from the playground slide.  Jessie got up and stood on the bench. One could see the whole small town from the bench and she saw the clock.  It was seven in the morning and the whole place was covered in frost, looking like a Christmas card.  It must have been the weird weather they were having. 

"We have to catch that Pikachu!" she said angrily. "And James ran off without telling me!" she jumped from the bench and walked towards the drinking fountain a bit further down the hill, leaving footprints in the frost that covered the sidewalk.

Her boot hit a solid object.  She looked down and nudged the object with her toe. It sounded hollow and she bent over to pick it up.  "A squirtle bottle…" she said. "**James' **squirtle bottle…" she added as she saw the deeply engraved "J" on the side.  She looked close by and saw James unconscious on the ground, covered in the same frost that took over the town.

She dropped the squirtle bottle and brushed the powdery frost from his body.  

"James!" she cried as she checked him for injury or sickness.  She was too nervous to feel a pulse no matter how much she tried but his breath was shallow and that was enough confirm he was living.  "Can you hear me, James? James?" she asked, her voice getting panicky.

Meowth came over.  "Whatcha do? Hit 'im with your mallet?" he asked.

"Get a doctor!" she threw a rock at Meowth and he ran off to get medical help.  Jessie turned her attention to her friend again. "Damn it, James. You can't die on me!" 

@--}---

Jessie waited by James' bedside until he awoke weak and tired.

"Jessie…?" James asked. 

"I am here," Jessie did her best not to sound worried. "What do you want, idiot?"

"I…" James started, not knowing how to phrase his words.  Jessie's ears perked up. Was he going to apologize? Or was it something else?

"Yeah, James?"

"I….I must know something right now."

"Dammit, James! Spit it out!"

"I must know where my backpack is!" he said at last.  Jessie felt like smacking him on the head but she saw he was already weak as it was.

"I brought it with us.  It's by the doorway."

"Is it cold in there?"

"Yeah, it's by the hospital entrance since they wouldn't let us bring them in…so…" Jessie couldn't help but wonder why he was so anxious for his backpack of all things.  

"YOU LEFT IT OUT THERE, YOU IDIOT?! BRING IT TO ME!" he screamed.   James' reaction was so surprising, it scared her and she had jumped towards the door in fright.  It was the icy glare in his eyes that scared her more than his scream. 

She managed to compose herself quickly and scowled at him but went outside to get his backpack.  He didn't need to be so paranoid, she thought. She got it and brought it to him. He snatched it away.

"Water…." He said. "Clean, pure water for drinking." 

Jessie got it for him and put the glass on the nightstand.  "Anything else, your highness?" she said sarcastically.

James licked his lips, feeling guilty for being so mean to Jessie. He shook his head.  "No…just leave me alone…"

Jessie was halfway out the door when she overheard half of James' whisper of  "…my rose…". 

 Her heart fluttered.

@--}---

Jessie applied her makeup carefully and gave herself one last look in the mirror.

"Meow. Whom ya hooked up with dis time, Jess?"  Meowth muttered, eying Jessie's obviously revealing dress and the presence of more makeup on her face.

Jessie blushed but walked out quickly saying, "none of your business."

Meowth scratched his head. "Ya know, James wouldn't fall for dat. He's too sensitive." Quicker than the speed of light, he found a high-heeled shoe embedded in his face.  

Jessie walked into James' bedroom where he was breathing heavily. Sleeping, she thought. He had recovered in the hospital but continued to lie in his bed at the hideout as he was too weak to go Pikachu hunting with Jessie and Meowth.  She prodded him awake. 

"What is it?" he asked.  Jessie sat on his bed and leaned over, nearly sprawling on him.  "J-Jessie? W-w-what do you want?"

"Don't you feel…well, turned on?" Jessie asked, starting to feel ridiculous.  James looked away, shaking his head. "you don't?"

"Yes! Um…No! Yes! No! I am sorry, Jessie! I didn't mean to insult you!" James blushed. "It's just that I don't want to seem like a human wolf!"

Jessie rolled her eyes.  "Dangit, James, you are so naive."  With that, she walked out the door.  James sunk into the pillow and sighed.  That was a close call.  He reached into his pajama jacket and pulled out his now blossoming red rose.  

That was close…too close, he thought to himself as he returned it to a vase on his nightstand. "But thanks, Jess."

@--}--

James was feeling better the next morning and had made pancakes by the time Jessie and Meowth got up.  Jessie ate her food without comment.

"Jessie?" James asked. 

"Yeah?" Jessie replied, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her eyes.  James looked away and rubbed the back of his head with a hand.  

"Um….thanks…for last night," he said. "I owe you a lot."

Jessie tried to make sense of what he was saying since he seemed so flustered the night before when she visited him.

"Well…you're welcome…I guess," she said. "You *****did*** **call me a rose back at the hospital, did you?"  she felt foolish for asking but she had to know.

James blushed heavily.  How was he supposed to explain this to her? He licked his lips and picked at his pancakes. He shook his head sadly.

"No, Jess…it wasn't you. But-" he never got to finish his statement as Jessie slapped him across the face.

"You made me make a complete fool of myself! I thought you loved me or something!" Jessie shouted at him, red in the face.

"But Jessie, I-" James tried to tell her the truth but she hit him against the wall.

"I don't care if you were near death the other day, I hate you!" she got up and slammed the door behind her.  James lay on the floor, his heart nearly torn in two.  Meowth swallowed the last bit of his pancakes and bent down near James who was silently crying.

"She doesn't mean it, Jim.  Don't let it get to ya."

@--}--- 

Jessie sat on the bench, trying to compose herself.  Why did she think that James loved her?  He could have been talking about a secret girlfriend…or **boyfriend** for that matter.  She picked up a branch and snapped in half.

And again….

And again….

And again…until the branch was nothing but many bits of wood strewn on the sidewalk.  The Vermillion Harbor was calm and that along with her branch-killing actions helped calm her down.  She checked to see if the mail she picked up earlier was still under the bench.  Satisfied, she looked towards the sunset before heading back.

@--}---

James woke up when he heard Jessie come through the door.    
  


"Jessie?" he rubbed his sleepy eyes.  

Jessie tossed him several letters.  James opened one and read it over three times before looking at her in disbelief.  

"Growly's dead…." He finally said.  "My best canine friend.  I never…" James got up and closed the door behind Jessie.  Jessie sighed.  Poor Growly, but what was she to do about it?  She lay on her half of the bed and dozed off.  James lay on his bed as the rose on his nightstand started to wilt.

Jessie awoke the next morning and found the rest of the letters scattered on the floor.  She picked up her beauty magazines, leafed through them, placed the bills on the table and went outside.  She  found James already outside dressed all in black, which was his black undershirt and black pants, sitting on the hill.

"James…" she started.  James looked wistfully at her.

"I just can't believe it.  One of my only friends," he sighed.  "I am going to visit his grave back at the estate someday…bring some flowers."

"Mmm…" Jessie didn't know what to say. She had lost her mother when she was young but not even James knew about that and she wasn't going to sympathize with her friend using her mother as an example. Besides, she was still mad at him. "I am sorry," she said at last. "Let's go inside; you've got another letter from yesterday."

James response to his second letter was worse.  He crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. 

"I am not  going," he said. 

"What?" 

"He can't make me."

"What?"

"Giovanni.  Orders to meet him tomorrow."

"James…you know what are the consequences of-" Jessie started.

"I AM NOT SEEING HIM!" 

"James, what was in the letter? Did you read all of it?"

James shook his head. "I don't need to. I am not going."

"Read it."

James bit his lower lip and uncrumpled the letter and scanned the rest of it.  His lips curled up in anger and he stormed into the house.  Jessie grabbed his undershirt but it tore and James darted into the bedroom.  

"James!" Jessie shouted.  She opened and entered the room before James could lock the door.  She gazed at the man who was breathing hard by the bed.

She had  had never seen James so infuriated in his entire life.  His body was made of pure, fiery hatred.  Jessie could have sworn he looked like he could have murdered someone without a thought at that moment.  She looked over his shoulder and noticed something her eyes wouldn't believe. 

The rose that was in its tiny vase was aflame. 

@--}—

"James, what in the wor-" she began.  James seemed to snap out of his blind silent rage and glanced at the flaming rose whose flames immediately were extinguished as if someone flipped the off-switch for a toy.  The rose wasn't burnt at all.  James was breathing hard and he shut his eyes and mumbled something to himself.  Jessie's curiosity got the better of her and she took a petal gently in her un-gloved fingers.  They weren't even hot but felt cool and silky but a few seconds later, she felt it become rigid and cold.  At the same time, she heard James tense up as if she had touched upon a most terrible, secret part of him. 

"That is why I am not going," James said.   

"What? A rose?" Jessie asked, going towards him.  Was it some exotic rose that Giovanni wanted?

"It's about time I've told you.  Even…even though I can get killed for it." James said to her, more serious than he ever was before with her.  He got the rose and made Jessie hold onto it with one hand while he held onto the rose with another.  Jessie was about to ask him what was going on when James' memories of the past flooded her mind.

@--}—

_"What is it?"  A younger James asked.  He looked about four years younger; about the time they had first met Ash Ketchum._

_"The Boss just wants to see you," the Dan'in who was leading him said.  _

_"I trust it isn't about failure, is it?" James asked. _ **The present James chuckled grimly at his younger, more egotistic and proud self.**

_James was brought in Giovanni's office and the door was slammed behind him.  James quickly got up, his heart racing.  _

_"Well, James.  Come here," the Boss' voice called.  James had no choice but to obey or die.  He walked to Giovanni's side and felt a large hand patting him on the head.  James shuttered as he was brought close to the orange suit._  **Jessie shuttered involuntarily as she watched as an outsider.**

_"James…"_

_"W-What is it, Boss?"_

_"Pretend I am Jessie."_

_"What?!"_

_"You love her, don't you?"_

"It was best not to lie," the current James' voice reached Jessie who had made a mental reaction of disgust.  

_"Y-yes, sir.  She's my friend and all but…I am scared."_

_"Why? Rejection?"_

_"I'd never do that to a friend and she'd hit me."_

"I pity you, James.  You'll never become a man," Giovanni sighed. "Perhaps this will teach you." He pushed a button on the intercom.  "He's yours."

James was instantly held down by Dan'in who were  hidden in the shadows.  James tried his best to struggle but was held fast.  He was young and more daring and glared at the man in the shadows.  

"He's yours to experiment on, gentlemen," Giovanni said to the scientists in the back.  James' eyes widened.

"No! Please! I beg you! Don't hurt me!" James cried. "NO~!"  the cry echoed as the doors slammed shut after the Dan'in carried the screaming James out.  

There was darkness…times of semi-consciousness as he gazed dazed at what was going on around him and times of pure black.  He was helpless to what was being done to him.   He did not know whether the  things they were doing to him were for good or for bad.  Was he going to die?

@-}—

Jessie's eyes were wide with shock as the mind-pictures faded with the echo of James' scream in her mind.  James' eyes were filled with tears.  

"What….what did they do to you?" she asked, touching his chest and running her hand up and down it as if to feel for any flaws.  "I-I mean, you seem normal and everything."

"Giovanni gave me to the experimentation team: Project G.  They somehow transferred my life source into an inanimate object.  They happened to find a rose, that I had picked up that day,  in my pocket and decided to transfer my life source into it for whatever reason.  It responds to my emotions; that is why it was aflame when I was furious and wilted when I was sad, for example.  The main purpose for the experiment, they told me, was to see what positive things came out of a Rocket who never died.  As long as I keep the rose containing my life sourse safe and "living", I can never die."

"But we blast off all the time.  How come **I** don't die? Why doesn't Meowth?" Jessie asked. "I've always thought of it as a fluke."

James smiled sadly. "I also have the power to protect you and Meowth from harm.  With the rose, I can stop the people closest in my life from dying; I harness your life sources and protect them every time we blast off or get beaten pretty badly."

"What happened that day in the park?" 

"I left the rose in my backpack and I guess someone must have opened it during the night.  I was going to water it but unfortunately, it seemed to have frosted over or something because I completely blacked out, feeling completely frozen."

So that was the snag in the jacket, Jessie thought.  

"That's why I am not going to see Giovanni tomorrow.  He's going to "check up on me", that's what. I hate that man," James clutched his fists. 

Jessie shook her head.  This had to be a joke.  "I don't buy it; nice story but way out of the ballpark.  What is the real reason you won't see him?"

"You don't believe me," James said simply.   Jessie glared at him.

"You're damn right, I don't believe that crap," she retorted.  James grabbed Jessie's hand and made her touch her own chest.

"You feel your heart beating?" he asked.  Jessie scowled at him. 

"Of course I do, idiot," she said.  James sighed and transferred her hand onto his bare own chest. 

"Do you feel mine?" 

And there was no argument Jessie could come up with.  She felt no heartbeat beneath the skin of her best friend.


	2. goodbye?

Part Two

Jessie awoke to the sound of murkrows cawing outside.  It took her a while to register that she had passed out and James had put her on the bed.  It was near sunset as far as she could tell.   She was silent for a long time, unable to digest the last detail she remembered before fainting.  What was it like to know you'd live forever if you can never again feel your own heart pulse beneath your flesh? She thought.  Was there real life in such a person? 

"You're awake."

Jessie lifted her head up to see James, who had put on a black t-shirt by now, enter the room with a tray of food: dinner.  He set it down on her lap and Jessie once again ate without comment.  James sensed the uneasiness she felt and he moved off the bed.   Jessie followed his movements with her eyes, not knowing if she should trust him at all.  James brushed his hair back and tried to organize his thoughts.

"Jessie," he began.  "I know how you feel.  I would hate myself too if I hadn't known that." He sighed.  "Four years…yet you still knew me as the same friend you've had for over ten.  Now it seems different."

Jessie had enough.  James did not have the right to talk to her as if she were of inferior rank or a child.  The fork clattered on the plate and she sat up, careful not to tip the tray.  "Well of course, it's different!  I've been lied to for four years and you expect me to trust you?"

James sighed. "No, I didn't, Jessica.  I couldn't expect that from you." 

"Don't call me that!" Jessie snarled.  "Don't get all mushy and melodramatic on me, you…freak!" 

The word "freak" echoed in his mind, pounding its way deeper and deeper like the dull thudding of a hammer.  James cringed but then he grew angry.  He did not suffer with his curse in secret for four years to be called a freak.  The rose, now returned to its vase, was ridged and emitting heat that Jessie felt and recognized.  

"You think that scares me, James?  Forget it! I know you don't have the guts to hit me," Jessie continued to snarl with a sadistic, twisted grin emerging on her face.  She was too blinded by her own rage to know how much she was affecting James.  James, on the receiving end, clenched his fists.  He felt bitter hatred for his grinning friend.  How could he even have thought of anything between them?  Why had he bothered to put up with her?

James' icy glare penetrated Jessie.  She fell silent as she felt a strange imperious force being emitted from James himself.  There was no way to describe it but he looked older in her eyes, despite their age difference of almost a year, and much more terrifying. 

"You're right, Jess.  I don't," James muttered as he unclenched his fists. Without another word, James left the room.  Jessie stared at the door. Why had James scared her? She was JESSIE, for God's sake! Jessie of Team Rocket!   Jessie got up and glanced over to the rose, still emitting heat.  She got out from under the covers and swung herself off the bed, never taking her eyes off the exothermic flower. She was angry at the rose.  Why should James be angry that she was angry?  He was the one who kept his dumb secret from her.  Her rage was consuming.  

 She snapped back into reality as she discovered the thorns cutting into her skin as she held the rose horizontally in both hands in an unconscious decision to snap it in half.  It was barely bent halfway but Jessie went into hysterics all the same.  She dropped the rose, fell to the floor and wept into her bleeding hands.  She had almost killed her best friend; Angry as she was, James was one of the only companions she still had.  She was ashamed and guilt-ridden. 

"James, you damn fool! You damned, beautiful fool!" she cried aloud.   

Elsewhere, James had his hands to his chest. Tears were streaming down his checks and he was taking great breaths of air as if he were saved from drowning.  If his heart still pulsed, it would have been racing, giving him reassurance that he was still alive and safe.  He had no such reassurance.   It was such an awful feeling, when a person was suddenly touching another's soul, gripping it unmercifully in their hands and twisting it out of proportion.  He had relaxed as he had felt Jessie's hands released the rose and realized he had fallen over and was now laying on the dirt road. A strange dizzying and woozy sensation had taken over his mind and his strength had left him altogether. James stared teary-eyed at the darkening sky.  His own friend, the one he trusted most…

"Jessie.  Why did you try to kill me?"

@-}—

Meowth was warming himself by the small fireplace when he awoke Jessie's uncontrollable sobbing.  He had heard James exit the small house (which was adjacent to the lighthouse on the hill overlooking the Vermillion Port) twice that day but had not seen Jessie all day, though she might have been up and about when he was outside looking for loose change.   He opened a feline eye and his ear twitched back and forth.

"Meow…" he sighed, not wanting to move from his warm spot.  He reached over to the group of pokèballs beside him to release one to check Jessie out but then decided that Jessie probably needed more of a human companion, even though he himself was a pokèmon.   Giving into his conscience, he got up and walked to the bedroom.  "You ok, Jess?" he asked through the door.  There was no answer but the sobbing continued. Using his cat-like abilities, he opened the door and saw Jessie weeping as if she had betrayed Team Rocket. Jessie looked at Meowth with red, swollen eyes and Meowth had to fall over at the sight. Her face was something out of a horror film with dried blood clinging to her cheeks where her hands had made contact with her face.  

"Jessie! What 'cha tryin' ta do? Kill yourself?!" Meowth asked in surprise, afraid of the answer.  Jessie wiped her eyes with a sleeve and looked her blood-covered hands before bawling all over again.  "What is wrong wid' ya?!" Meowth screeched, shaking Jessie's shoulders.

"I-I…." Jessie could not get the words out.  How could you possibly explain you almost killed your friend with your bare hands? Bare hands that looked as if they had committed murder? 

Meowth rubbed against Jessie as she started to quiet down.  He saw the rose still on the floor and picked it up.  Wondering what James would do, he held it up in an effort to comfort the girl; he knew many humans loved flowers.  "Jess?" he asked. Jessie looked towards Meowth and caught sight of the flower.  Letting out a wail, she grabbed it away from Meowth, bringing it towards her chest. 

"I am so sorry! I am so sorry!" she cried over and over again before returning it to its vase.  Meowth was in a state of confusion.  He ran to the bathroom and damped a washcloth and wiped Jessie's face clean.  It seemed to help her compose herself a little though she continued to cry.  

Jessie stopped short, finally gaining control of herself.  Despite the sobs that still racked her body, she managed to somewhat explain what happened.  

"So James' soul is in dat rose?" Meowth asked, half-disbelievingly as he tended to and bandaged Jessie's hands.  He didn't announce to Jessie that he thought it was a load of BS dreamed up by some idiot author but he decided to keep quiet while Jessie was still upset.  Jessie nodded.  "And ya almost snapped it in half an' killed 'im?" 

Jessie gave another nod.  "I was so angry…" she said simply.  Meowth closed his eyes.

"How'da know dat Jimmy was tellin' da truth? You said it ya'self, it was way out dere, somethin' outta a science-fic'ion book or somethin'," Meowth asked.

Jessie grew red.  "I-I didn't tell you?"

"Nope. You jus' gave out and skipped from da memory-exchange t'ingy to da fight youse had wid' Jim."

"He proved it to me; he placed my hand on his chest," Jessie stopped as Meowth gave an involuntary snort. "You want to know or not, cat?" she scowled.

"Ok, Meowth is sorry," Meowth sighed as he finished bandaging Jessie's hands.  Jessie reached up and got the glass of water that sat on the nightstand and drank it to calm herself down. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and set the glass down on the ground.

"He placed my hand on his chest and there was no heartbeat yet he looked so full of life.  There is just no other explanation; he had nothing on his chest to prevent me from feeling it," Jessie said.  Meowth remained silent.  

"I still dun' quite buy it but if this whole thing is true, den Jim is in serious trouble," Meowth said, looking at the rose in its vase. 

"Why?"

Meowth pointed.  The rose was drooping and two petals had fallen onto the nightstand.  

@-}-- 

James made his way to the nearby tree, too weakened to drag himself to the bench.  Taking in deep gasps of air, he slowly nudged this way and that and eventually got into a sitting position.  He heard the gentle waves lapping at the shore.  There was no way he could go back to the house, it had taken him long enough to just travel six feet.  

Looks like I am stuck here for the night, he thought to himself, too tired to do anything else.  The same dizzy sensation overtook him again and he held his head in his hands as he felt an unexplainable sorrowful pain set in.  

**jessie dont hurt me please i beg you let it stop dont hurt me  jessie jessica best friend no hurt**,  James' brain would not work and his thoughts were disoriented as he curled up into a tiny ball in a futile attempt to protect himself from the pain.

"James!"  Jessie called out.  James looked up with the last of his waning strength. His mouth shaped her name but he had no voice left.  Jessie ran up to him and placed a bandaged hand behind his back. "Oh, God, what happened to you now?"

James looked at her pitifully, vaguely aware of the dim flashlight shining at his face.  Jessie was taken aback.  Had she hurt him that much?  James closed his eyes, unable to focus on Jessie's face.  Jessie hastily licked her lips.  She caught herself looking for a heart beat but smacked herself with her other bandaged hand, which stung as she did so, as she remembered that he was not supposed to have one.  He was still breathing and Jessie made her way back to the lighthouse, following its beacon of light, leaving the flashlight in the grass where its own dim light eventually died. 

@-}—

James had trouble adjusting his eyes to the light.  He managed to turn his head a little to see the fuzzy image of Jessie asleep at the bedside, slumping over from her chair to rest her head on the bed sheets.  He shifted his head back again and sighed.  How was he going to trust Jessie after-

"James…" 

James' eyes roamed until they settled on Jessie's tired face.  He mouthed her name and held out a hand, as cautious as a timid pet.  Jessie's fingers curled around his.  Jessie's words got caught in her throat as she was forcing herself not to cry.  James' eyes settled on her bandaged hands and a pang of sadness and fear ran through his spine.   Her grip grew tighter and tighter until James felt his hand was going to be crushed.  Yet he made no sound as that was her usual way of apologizing.  His eyes locked with hers and both knew that there were no words needed.  Jessie leaned over some more, taking James in her arms.  Sapphire blue met emerald green again and Jessie felt her friend relax.  She glanced at the rose in the vase.  She stared seemingly blankly as she saw it was looking a bit better than the last time she set eyes on it but James knew her tricks too well.  James caught her glancing at the rose and smiled weakly. 

"I am…still…me…" he managed to say to his best friend, finding some strength at last. 

"I think I can see that now, James. I trust you. If you can find it within yourself to trust me again…"  Jessie didn't finish but gave him a small hug.  James hugged her back and Jessie knew he had forgiven her despite her idiotic actions. They just sat on the bed, rocking back in forth to comfort the other.  Jessie closed her eyes. All these years she had took him as a normal human being yet he had not been the man she thought he was during the last four years.  It did make sense now that he was still the same person…though his spirit and soul were separated.  She wondered if he felt emotions like a normal person would. She shook her head.  Of course he did! He still whined over food and turned absolutely giddy when it came to finding the perfect cross-dressing outfit…

James' next statement interrupted her thoughts.  "A bath would be nice…" James grinned.

Smirking, Jessie lifted James into a fireman's carry and delivered him to the bathroom. She set him on the toilet seat as she ran the water.  After the bathtub was half-full, Jessie plopped him in the hot water and left the room, closing the door behind her.  James stuck his tongue at her or rather at the closed door.  He sighed and began to take his now soaked clothes off and toss them on the bathroom tile so he would be able to bathe.

@-}—

The steamy bath was beginning to make James feel relaxed again and he sighed contently, feeling energetic yet lazy at the same time.  He and Jessie were on equal terms again, he wouldn't be forced to see Giovanni the next day and-

The last thought startled James and he sat upright in the bathtub. Giovanni was sure to send someone after him, he thought.  Someone was sure to come and make James see him.  Someone would do something subtle to make him go on his own….taking days beforehand to plant the idea in his head...

James started to piece the puzzle pieces together.

He was sure he had closed his backpack as always with several heating packs after taking out his squirtle bottle, yet, according to Jessie, it was wide open.  It would have taken about twenty minutes for his rose to freeze but he had fainted a mere three minutes after taking out the squirtle bottle.  

James closed his eyes to remember the awful feeling he had encountered before blacking out.

**Frozen…I was completely frozen…an icy feeling tearing at my heart…some icy merciless grip…******

It couldn't have been just the cold…someone bad had touched him; touched his soul like Jessie had. But it was so cold…

He turned his thoughts to the hospital.  The people would have taken his pulse to see if he were alive or not.

"But I have no pulse," James said aloud.  Could a Team Rocket agent be working in that hospital?  Someone who knew about him? Someone with great authority…someone who would know where they were…

A painful ache in his back shattered the rest of his thoughts.  Grasping his left shoulder, he felt the ache again which had spread down his left arm.  His emerald eyes were wide with fear.

"No…please, God, no…" he gasped.  Knowing the danger he was putting him and his comrades were in, James stood up in the tub and ran out the door with a towel wrapped around his waist.   He ran to the bedroom and saw that Jessie was sitting on the bed in her nightgown, combing out her hair.  Meowth was on the floor, counting loose change again.  Jessie saw James' expression so full of agitation and assumed James was angry about her dumping him into the bathtub as well as everything else that had happened that day.

"Whoa, Jimmy! Get some pants on!" Meowth exclaimed. 

"Geez, James! I am sorry but you couldn't take a joke like that? I mean, throwing you into the ba-" Jessie started. James set both of his hands on her shoulders, looking dead serious again.

"I have no time to explain," he said before going to find some clothes to wear.  "I have to leave right away." 

"James! I am not forcing you to see the Boss tomorrow! What on earth are you so fired up about?"  Jessie asked.  James shook his head, muttering all the time he was running back and forth to gather supplies and belongings.

Jessie and Meowth just looked ridiculously at James as he rummaged through drawers and shoved things into a duffle bag.  He was dressed in a flash and his pokèballs were attached to his belt.  He slung the bag over his shoulder and was about to make his way to the vase.  Jessie leapt up and grabbed the rose from the vase before he did.  Pure terror overtook James' face as he saw the rose in her hands and stopped dead in his tracks.  

"Meow! Jess! Ya' know what happen'ed last time!" Meowth yowled.

"Wait! You don't know what you are doing! Jessie, put it-" James panicked, feeling Jessie's burning grip on him.  She couldn't figure out the other terrible secret, she just couldn't! 

"Stop that!" she commanded, pointing the rose at him.  James was suddenly quiet and looked at her with a dulled, jaded look on his face as if daring her.  The duffle bag dropped from his grasp and landed with a light thud on the floor.  Jessie was surprised he was listening to her in his state of obvious panic and a queasy feeling formed in her stomach.  Was he trying to scare her?  Was this a trick of his with a "hell-with-this" attitude? she thought. 

"I don't like this, James.  I don't like it one bit.  What the hell is going on?!"  Jessie demanded.

"It is better not to tell you now. Maybe it's best never to tell you," James said simply with the same dull look on his face.  Jessie continued to chew him out, with James simply staring at her with the same blank look on his face, which seemed to infuriate Jessie even more.  Meowth looked worryingly between Jessie and James.  

"Jessie…I think you'd better give him back da rose.  He don't look so good," Meowth suggested.  Realizing what pain James would probably have been suffering with her holding the rose, she placed it in his hands.  James looked surprisingly at her and then at the rose and then at Meowth.  The same fearful expression overtook his face again and try as he might, the words got caught in his throat.

"Why don't you ever tell me anything? What the hell is going o-" Jessie started before James put a finger to her lips. 

"I can't tell you.  I almost told you anything you wanted to know; which could get us all in trouble.  I don't know if I'll ever see you again.  I can't put all of us in danger: You, Meowth, my family."  He picked up the duffle bag and gave his friends a final look.  They seemed so confused and worried…he thought.  He shook his head.  He couldn't stay with them.  He wanted to cry, to scream at the top of his lungs but he held it all back.

"Farewell my friends, dear Jessica…Meowth.  I shall never forget the happy times."

Without another word or look, James put the rose in his jacket pocket and ran out the door with his duffle bag thumping against his side. Tears flowed freely from the inner corners of his eyes.  Jessie and Meowth ran to the open door and called out to him as he melted into the eerie darkness. 

"Jim!"  Meowth called.

"James!" Jessie shouted after him. Not even an echo responded her call.


	3. mind games

Part Three

The amber eyes followed the young man's moves as he moved somewhat brokenly into the small port town of Ebony Beach.  The boy's tears had blinded the boy's vision many times, causing the youth to trip and fall, only to pick himself up again and continue limping and running interchangeably.  The crimson lips curled into an evil sneer.  She brushed her long black hair from her eyes and leapt nimbly off the tree branch and from behind the foliage that had concealed her in the darkness.  She held a whip in her hands.  She pulled it taunt and watched her prey limping further away.  

"James, my dear, we shall meet again soon," she chuckled nearly to herself. 

@-}—

Jessie stood outside of the small cabin, the constant ocean wind blowing through her hair.  If James thought that they were not going to find him, he was dead wrong, she thought.  She and Meowth had started after him only twenty minutes after they were sure he was serious and if Jessie knew James…well, she'd find him after quite a few tries.  The search had not been easy.  James was nowhere to be found in Vermillion or any of the other nearby towns and they had to be careful not to bump into other Rocket members who were common in the area.  It was a big thing to catch a "traitor" of the Boss in Team Rocket.  Jessie knew the procedure too well. They were all looking for James and possibly Jessie and Meowth in hopes for a huge bonus from the Boss.  The third day took her to the seas, to where she was now currently crossing. The stars glittered so brightly that night that Jessie found herself being self-conscious about being a small insignificant  speck in the univer- 

She snapped out of it.  Jessie of Team Rocket didn't think like that.  She felt a fuzzy paw on her leg and she looked down at her feline companion.

"Meow.  Jess, ya bett'a get int'a bed," Meowth said, handing her a blanket.  "You'll fwreeze out 'ere." Jessie took no notice but she wrapped the blanket around herself all the same.

"What does it matter? We've been in colder climates than this," Jessie muttered.  "You don't know the meaning of freezing.  No one does except for the people who do freeze to death.  No one knows true pain except for the ones who do," Jessie sighed.  "Many don't know the true meaning of things."

"Well, ya can't take ME-owth for a protected litt'le pansy either!" Meowth grunted.  "Ah've been through as much pain as youse or Jimmy have so don't take it out on me!" 

Jessie didn't say a word, knowing Meowth was right.  She wasn't the only one that suffered, although she liked to think so while in self-pity.  She brushed the thought aside. What good did it do to dwell on such things anyways?  

"Shut up, furball.  What good is it to be optimistic if the whole world comes crashing down on you?" she said, belying her own thoughts, just to see what Meowth's mind would come up with as a comeback.  Maybe he'd leave her alone.

"It's so we can pull t'rough da tough times, idiot,"  Meowth started dancing on the deck of the ferry boat in order to get Jessie to snap out of her funky mood. He spun around, clapping his paws together and chanting what seemed to be "para para para". "Optimistic Team Rocket! Dat's who we are!" Meowth finished.  Jessie smiled wistfully and gazed out onto the sea.  

"Idiot…" she murmered.

Looking towards the stars, she thought about what James had said earlier.

***

"Giovanni gave me to the experimentation team: Project G.  They somehow transferred my life source into an inanimate object.  They happened to find a rose that I had picked up that day, in my pocket and decided to transfer my life source into it for whatever reason.  It responds to my emotions; that is why it was aflame when I was furious and wilted when I was sad, for example.  The main purpose for the experiment, they told me, was to see what positive things came out of a Rocket who never died.  As long as I keep the rose containing my life source safe and "living", I can never die."

***

But was it his spirit or his soul?  Jessie had stepped inside a real church only a few times but she did stay long enough in one to recover from nearly freezing to death to hear the pastor preach about spirits and what separated them from the beasts of the world.   Though she never really remembered what the old man had said that day, she had often wondered what the difference was between a soul and a spirit afterwards. A dictionary did no good and thus she concluded that they were one and the same.  However, James' situation brought the old conundrum to the surface of Jessie's mind.  If a person's soul died, the person could physically live yet they were "killed".  The spirit, as far as Jessie knew, never died, even after the soul departed from a living being.  Both were associated with a rational mind, thoughts and emotions. Which would have been the one that she would have killed earlier that day?  

And why had he run away alone? His words of "It is better not to tell you now. Maybe it's best never to tell you" echoed in her mind.  She felt dizzy thinking about it and closed her eyes to steady herself. She was suddenly so tired that she could barely open her eyes to see Meowth's concerned facial expression. Meowth led her from the deck back to the small cabin, which was behind them.   Jessie slid underneath the covers and fell asleep almost immediately, feeling a slight tingling sensation in her right palm.  

---

She hated running; She had been running from her past for years, yet she was running through a forest, panting hard.  The ground suddenly gave way and she fell to find herself on the deck of the boat.   A wave of nausea hit her and she fell to the deck and held her head in her head, closing her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she was not on the deck any longer.  She looked around to find herself in an area that was pitch-black.  Meowth was nowhere to be seen.  There was someone in front of her.  There was no mistaking the boy with lavender hair. But he was so young…and dressed in fine clothing…

"James?" she asked.  The small boy looked at her with the look of the happiest person in the world on his face, holding a single narcissus of the purist white.  He smiled brightly and ran towards her with the flower in hand with a laugh that accompanied his smile.  Jessie smiled, and though it seemed rather silly, she bent down to receive him in his arms.  He vanished just as she was about to touch him.   The flower lay on the ground, giving Jessie the chills as she picked it up.  She cried out in pain and dropped the delicate flower that had suddenly transformed into a rose the color of dried blood.  She looked at her right hand – the hand she held the flower with- and it was smeared dark red with   blood, which was running from her hand to the floor in a steady stream.  She looked down and realized there **was** no floor and that the blood continued to trickle forever downwards into the black void.  Meowth walked up from behind her.

"Meowth? Wha-

---

James sat on the lonely bench below the dim streetlight.  He licked his lips and took out his squirtle bottle and rose.  Looking around in the obscure darkness, he found no threat and tilted the bottle enough to sprinkle the flower with water.  He tucked both objects back into his jacket pocket and  walked into a small club.  Unnoticed by many, he took a seat at the bar and ordered a strawberry daiquiri, being tired of thinking and thought that he should at least try to get a load off of his mind for the present.  The glass was slid to him and he sipped at it, lost in thought, barely tasting the drink.  He set the glass down to take a deep breath when a gentle hand rested on his shoulder.  James gave an involuntary gasp as he felt someone's breath in his ear.  The scent of vanilla penetrated his senses.

"Hey,"  a woman smiled sweetly at him as he turned his head to see the person resting his or her head on his shoulder.

"H-hi..." James stammered.  The woman seemed to be a year or two younger than him with long silky raven hair that reached slightly below her shoulders.  Her eyes shut and she smiled sweetly at him.  The first impression James had of her was that she was one of those girls who looked for free drinks or sex- and many of the times both.  But first impressions were not always true so James remained seated.  He gulped hard, the vanilla scent making him adjusting his collar uncomfortably.

"This seat taken?" the woman slid into the seat next to him as he shook his head.  

"Umm…" James looked at her up and down, a bit stunned by her sudden appearance.  She wore a tight blue shirt with tiny sequins sewn into the fabric, which drew even more attention to her chest, and tight leather pants with a belt with just as much sparkle as her top.  He noted her amber eyes and the dark red lips.  She was positively stunning.  He watched her as she calmly reached for his glass on the bar and took a sip.  She looked at him as he watched her. 

"My apologies," the woman said with a chuckle as she set down the glass.  "I forgot to introduce myself.  I am Kat," she extended her hand.

"I-I am James," James took her hand.  "Nice to meet you, Kat."

"I am pleased.  Would you like a drink?"

---

"-t is going on? I don't like this place," Jessie said to him.  "Meowth? Are you listening to me? This damn rose cut me!"

 Meowth walked by Jessie without a look back.  He disappeared after a while as she tried in vain to get his attention.  

"Meowth? Don't leave me alone here!" Jessie called, clutching her right hand in her left hand.  "Where did you go? Where did James go?"

She turned around and saw James, grown up now, at his current age, with dirty lavender hair and jaded eyes staring at her.  He was dressed in all black; similar to a typical boy's Japanese school uniform with a matching cap. A wistful smile played on his lips.  

"Jess," he said simply, with the same smile on his face.

"James! Where the hell have you been?" Jessie ran to him.  She held him in her arms and despite the blood that continued to flow from her hand, she laughed.   "You scared me so badly back-"

She looked up at James.  His smile was lingering on his face but his eyes, though not physically crying, were filled with such deep sadness that Jessie had to look away.  He placed a platonic kiss on her forehead and he disappeared in a flurry of pink rose petals.

"James! You come back here right now!" Jessie shouted in

---

"Umm…" James was at a loss for words.  Kat ordered two drinks and pushed one to James.  "What is it?" James asked, not knowing what she had ordered as he was too lost in his own mind.

"It's a favorite of mine," Kat replied.  "Cheers."  They clinked glasses and drank.

The alcohol burned in his throat but James swallowed and drank again.  It was a strong drink, by far.  James' chemistry screamed out against the alcohol but it had already taken effect and James was unable to tell when to stop.  He finished his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and laughed at something that Kat had said. 

"Like the drink?" Kat asked sweetly.

"Loved it," James replied. He was blushing furiously and he laughed again. All of his fears and his carefully built barriers had disappeared.  

"I've never seen you around here before, James. Where are you from?" Kat asked, leaning against her glass.

"Near Vermillion," James hiccupped. "I walked here."

"You walked all the way here?" 

"Sure."

James looked at Kat.  She was so nice and rather intellectual; quite unlike his first impression. Kat's hand slid into his and before James realized what he was doing, he brought his face to her's and kissed her.

--- 

 an upward direction as there was pure black in every direction.  It was strange that the whole place was dark yet she could see the people she knew around her perfectly…

James appeared again in front of her…with a girl at his side.  She smirked at Jessie, taunting her silently.  Jessie scowled at the young woman who seemed to be slightly younger than James.  She infuriated Jessie; infuriated her with those cat-like amber eyes and the evil grin.  James however did not seem to notice in  the slightest and held the young girl in his arms lovingly.  Jessie was overcome with emotions of anger, confusion, and something she couldn't place her finger on.  A tremendous sadness? It couldn't be.  James took another look at Jessie before walking away.

"Wait," Jessie's voice

---

"So you have nowhere to stay?" Kat asked.  James shook his head, which felt disconnected from the rest of his body.

"How about you stay over at my place.  I have enough room in my apartment," Kat smiled.  James gave a small nod and Kat helped him to her car.

She drove them to her apartment and guided James into the room.  She pointed out that he could sleep on her bed and got extra blankets from the linen closet.  James sat on the bed, still feeling the influence of the alcohol within him.  What would Jessie say? He thought.  He shook his head.  He might not ever see her again. Why would he care?

Kat walked into the room with a bottle of wine and two champagne glasses.  She was dressed in a translucent slip the shade of blush pink.  James noticed the vanilla-like smell again surrounding the woman, making him fidget around. 

"I thought we might want a bit more to drink," she said. James looked greedily at the bottle and licked his lips in anticipation as Kat opened it.  She filled the glasses with a golden wine and handed one to James who emptied it quickly.  

"More," James demanded, more than asked. Kat refilled his glass…and refilled it again as she took out a packet from her pocket.

---

had been reduced to a whisper.  The blood continued to flow.  Jessie scowled.  How much blood did she have in her system anyways?

"Help me, Jessie…" James' voice echoed around her.

"Where are you?" Jessie asked into the void.  James appeared again without the girl.  Jessie gasped in horror.  James' arms were the scythes of a Scyther.  They were covered in rust-colored blood.  "James…what happened to you?"  James' eyes pleaded. 

"Help me…" he whispered.  Jessie advanced towards him cautiously.

In a flash, James' expression went from fearful helplessness to one of pure hatred.  He lunged at her and Jessie dodged the first attack. She spun around to see James crouching down in a position to attack.  Their eyes locked and Jessie's fear grew stronger.  This wasn't the James she knew.

"What are you-" Jessie didn't have time to finish her query when James leapt and pinned her to the non-existent ground. A scythe dug into her side and another in her right hand.  Her scream penetrated 

---

Kat tipped a fine powder into her glass of wine and swirled her glass until the powder dissolved.  She smirked playfully at James and tapped him, who didn't seem to notice her (or her subtle action).  James tried his best to focus on her though he saw at least four images of her.  

"Want to drink from my glass? It would be so romantic…" Kat smiled as she filled James' glass again.  James nodded and they switched glasses.  Kat drank slowly as she watched James gulp down the contents of her glass.  James hiccupped and looked at Kat who had finished her drink and was leaning against him.  When he looked at her, a sudden sense of desire was aroused in him.  The vanilla scent and the close proximity made his desire intensify. Whether by accident or intention, Kat's breast brushed against his arm as she twisted to look at him and a tingle of excitement ran down his spine.  

"How is it, James?" Kat asked seductively as she kissed him lightly on the nose.  

"Damn fine," James replied thickly before kissing her passionately and pushing her against the bed.  She kissed him back passionately and as she pulled him closer to him and started to undo his belt, James lost complete control of himself. 

--- 

the void.  When she came to, James was gone and so was her sense of control. 

"JAMES!" she cried out as a stab of pain came from her hand.  Someone was shaking her and crying her name.

"Jessie! Jessie!"

---

"Jessie! Jessie!" the cry was real.

Jessie awoke with a start, sweating despite the cold air around her.  Meowth stopped shaking her and crying her name. She felt her face and realized she had been crying.  She looked around and saw Meowth on her stomach. 

"Jessie!" he cried. "Wha' happ'ened? Youse swtarted screamin' an' cryin'- Meowth didn't know whatta do!" 

"Nothing…" Jessie averted her face before pain overtook her hand again and she was barely able to keep the cry of pain from being voiced. 

Emotions started to flood her mind; James' heated emotions along with disturbing images.  Jessie closed her eyes and shook her head, denying what was happening where James was.  But she couldn't! She could feel the disgusting hands of that girl from her dream!  She could feel them roaming the body of James…she could feel him returning the action.  There was no denying what was going on.  She bit her lip hard as something small but powerful shattered within her. 

The cry and the tears tried their best to claw their way out of her throat, ending up in convulsion-like movements which elevated into a heart-rendering howl.  Meowth was deeply worried.  For the second time that week, Jessie the Ice Queen had lost control of her emotions. 

"Jessie!" Meowth shouted but Jessie had already burst out of the door, tears already blurring her vision.  There wasn't really an explanation for why she was so upset.  For some unknown reason to Jessie, just seeing James with another girl infuriated her beyond belief.  **Knowing that he was ****sleeping with another girl was just over the edge for her.  Her feet carried her to the stern of the ferry and she heaved herself onto the railing.  Without a rational thought, she pushed off with her feet and felt the frigid air cut through her as she fell to the sea below. **


	4. betrayals

I am so sorry that it took me so freaking long to get this part up.  I've had it done since May but I kept on revising it over and over again when new ideas for this fiction popped into my head.  This fic is turning to be longer than I originally planned and it's getting more twisted…you thought you knew the plot for this whole thing, didn't you? Didn't you, you unsuspecting reader? There are more secrets revealed and more to come….

Will this ever become comprehensible? I have no idea. Sorry for the wait but finally, you get to read part four of the story with the title that I now hate!  =D

-SV    8/30/02

**********

The Prince of Roses - Part Four

"JESSIE!" James suddenly cried aloud.  Kat pulled away from him and looked at him in a puzzled yet annoyed manner.

"Hmm? Is she your girlfriend?" Kat asked, a hint of anger in her voice.  James' breathing calmed down as he wondered why he suddenly screamed out Jessie's name.  But…who was Jessie? He could not remember. His head was throbbing terribly and he was very groggy, yet he felt as light as a feather.  Finding no logical answer, his worried thoughts evaporated.  

"N-no…I don't know…wh-" James murmured.  He vaguely felt a gentle finger touch his lips to shush him.

"Shhh…it was just a bad dream…" Kat whispered, brushing away the wisp of hair clinging to James' forehead.  "Just a bad dream."

"Just a bad dream…" James echoed before he fainted into Kat's embrace.

@-}-

Jessie opened an eye as she felt a strain in her left leg. She shrieked in fear as she saw the icy water below her and squeezed  her eyes shut again as she realized she was dangling above the water.  Her head throbbed painfully as her facial muscles tightly contracted in fear.  Her breathing ceased as she heard the waters churning  beneath her.  The sea wind was freezing, buffeting her and her tangled hair fluttered in the manner of a flag in a strong gale, whipping about her. 

"Jessie!" a familiar voice called. "Are ya all right?!"

Jessie snapped out of it and strained herself to bend herself in an attempt to look upwards.  Arbok looked at her from the deck, his serpentine body coiled tightly around her left leg.  Her heart pounded against her ribs and she swallowed hard, still trying to figure out why she decided to fling herself off the boat.  She was angry with herself.  What the hell was Jessie of Team Rocket thinking?!  Jessie of Team Rocket would have found James and chucked **him** overboard.  It was not within her character to hurt herself when another could suffer the pain and make her feel better.  It was a stupid thing to do since she had a hidden fear of drowning.

"Jessie?" Meowth's voice was showing signs of panic as he heard no answer from his teammate.

"I am fine!" Jessie called up, a little less than calmly. "Pull me up, already!"

@-}---

Back in the cabin, Meowth locked the door and handed Jessie a paper cup of water.

"All right. Now you tell Me-owth what happened back dere. Foist you wake up crying James' name an' den youse chuck yourself overboard!" Meowth demanded.   Jessie maintained her normal icy gaze and took a sip of water, feeling a bit emotionally stronger.

"Nothing," she replied once again. 

"Youse call dat nothin'?  Tell Me-owth!" Meowth demanded.  Jessie sighed and told him about her strange dream, fearing only Meowth's claws scratching her (perfect) face if she didn't. "Dat' was not nothin'…" Meowth observed.  Jessie let out another cry of pain and the empty paper cup fell to the floor.  Her right hand felt as if it had caught ablaze and she instinctively clenched it, making it hurt even more.   "Let Me-owth see dat," Meowth cajoled her. 

Meowth unwrapped the bandages and stared at Jessie's palm.  "Well, Ai'll be damned…" he muttered.  Jessie looked at her palm.  Near the base of her thumb, there was a patch of red.  She brought it closer to her face and cleared her eyes of tears.  She was dumbfounded.  Something had been embedded in her hand. It had dug into her skin and healed over - though she could tell it was thorn that Meowth had neglected to pull out for one reason or another -and she saw that the patch of red was dried blood…shaped in the form of a tiny rose.

"What in the…?" Jessie murmured as she tenderly prodded the strange symbol on her hand with the index finger of her left hand. She couldn't help but admire how the blood rose up and beveled  in minuscule ridges to form "petals".    

"Should we tell the ship doctor? Me-owth can't pull dat thorn out. Paws aren't dat adroit," Meowth asked.

"No…" Jessie said, looking at the small floral design on her hand.  "I just have this feeling that this has to do with James.  That dream had to do with him and it all connected to my hand.  The flower,  the blood…right down to the last battle…" she went over the dream over and over in her mind.  She felt as if she was doing a jigsaw puzzle without the cover box, not knowing what she was looking for.  "Then that huge surge of emotion and mind images…" she looked at Meowth.  "I can't believe it myself but- but I think I am connected to James. I have no idea how or why but…I think it's through this…" she held her hand up to the light where the light reflected off the flower-like patch of dried blood. Meowth blinked and eyed Jessie wearily. He couldn't help thinking that what Jessie was trying to convey was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. 

"Ok…dat was jus' nuts…but if it works for you, it works for Me-owth.  Come on, we're nearly at  La Côte de l'Azure so we should get ready to get off da boat.  Ebony Beach should be a short walk away from dere an' from dere, we could take a bus from da station up to dat fancy mansion dat he grew up in," he said.  

"Oh yeah…" Jessie murmured, remembering the letters that James had received days ago and brought out the two letters: the notice that Growly had died and the letter from Giovanni. The  latter was nearly crumpled and torn to the point of being indecipherable.  Curiosity got the better of her and she started reading Giovanni's orders:

**James.**

**Time 7.13.085.  HQ.   Discuss Project G. mandit check up. Final round.  The phoenix awakens.**

**-Giovanni Sasaki**

Jessie stared at the crumpled paper. Surely there was more to that, she thought and scanned the rest of the letter.  Why would it stir such a rage in James? It had the air of a doctor's note, scribbled onto a piece of paper.  Finding nothing else on the note, she tossed it aside where it  hit the rim of and then landed neatly in the little trash can in the room. 

@--}---

Kat awoke first and sat up in bed.  Despite being naked, she seemed rather pleased with herself.  Glancing at the sleeping boy on her right, tangled in the sheets, she smirked and got out of bed to get dressed.  When she came back, clad in an outfit similar to what she wore at the bar,  she placed James on the nearby couch with some difficulty and covered him with a red blanket.  The boy snored on and Kat tossed her long black hair aside in the manner that a wild horse flings his mane out of his eyes.  She walked to the nightstand and took James' rose from the vase filled to the brim with the same alcoholic drink she had given James the night before.  She turned around as she heard a small gasp of pain from James and tightened her grip on the stem, delighting in watching her victim squirm restlessly on the couch, an expression of pain etched into his face.  As he neared the surface of waking, she released her grip and watched him relax a bit.  Kat took great care in replacing the rose in James' jacket pocket which hung awkwardly on the frame of a wooden chair in the room.  

Done with her work, she sauntered off to cook breakfast.  

@--}---  

 James awoke to the smell of Belgian waffles.  James tried to sit up, his mouth watering for the delicious breakfast waiting for him.  Halfway off the couch, he noticed his nakedness. He screamed and in turn fell over and landed in a tangled heap on the ground with the blanket.  

"What is it, James?" Kat rushed into the room and James just screamed louder and wrapped himself in the fabric, looking very much like a scared little boy who sought the protection of his blanket in fear of the monsters in his closet. 

"M-my clothes!" James stammered. "W-where are they?!"   Kat giggled softly and pointed to the chair with his jacket on it. 

"You fell into the koi pond last night. Don't you remember? You were in the shower when I took your clothes to wash and when I came back, you were asleep on the couch! Silly, James," she explained, almost teasingly.  "You hit your head on a rock as well so I take it you still have a headache?"  James nodded before clutching his head which felt like it was stuck in a vice.  His eyes shot open again and stared at Kat.

"My jacket! My pokèmon! Did you take my jacket to clean too? Are my pokèmon all right?" James asked frantically.  Kat shook her head explaining that he had taken off his jacket and put it on the chair before they checked out the koi pond and that  it wasn't necessary to wash.  She had taken his pokèballs off his belt and put them in the kitchen(in actuality, she had secretly broken the releasing mechanisms on the pokèballs the night before so they wouldn't "interrupt" and they were stowed in her pocket) James relaxed but then got antsy again.

"What is it?" Kat sighed, repressing the urge to hit him on the head.

"You must have seen my underwear…I feel so embarrassed…" James blushed and covered his face with his hands.  Kat laughed.

"No problem," she chuckled.  "I grew up with four older brothers and they had dirtier underwear than you do."  

James blushed again at her statement, annoying Kat a bit further. She brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. "So, you said you were headed towards that giant mansion on top of the road last night?"

"Umm…yeah,"  James nodded as he has no other idea why she would know his destination.

"I can drive you there if you want," Kat offered.  James murmured a 'thank you'. Kat smiled, chuckling within.

  Too perfect, the girl thought.

 @--}-- 

Jessie silently disembarked the ship when they reached La Côte de l'Azure and took a look around.  Meowth walked beside her.   In the afternoon, they reached Ebony Beach and caught a bus ride.  Jessie looked blankly out the window, occasionally glimpsing at Meowth who would then look away from Jessie.  Jessie sighed, lulled nearly to sleep by the bus' continual rocking motion.  The bus came to a stop at a deserted bus station next to a hill with a dirt path.  Jessie prodded Meowth awake and gathered their belongings.  Dressed in khakis and a simple lavander blouse, no one looked up at her with the same suspicious glare that people always gave her when she was in uniform.  The bus door closed behind her with a hiss of air and the bus continued on its route.  

"Jessie," Meowth started.  "You sure about this?"

"Positive," Jessie simply stated as she marched along the dirt road.  "Where else would he go now?"  Meowth decided to remain silent.  After about twenty minutes, Jessie suddenly had the urge to quicken her pace.  What was first a casual stroll became a jog which became a heated run.  The red-headed rocket's breathing became short and labored as her feet carried her faster and faster with her small bag of belongings thumping rhythmically at her side.  Meowth resorted to running on all fours to catch up with his friend.  

"What's the matter?" Meowth gasped between breaths.  Jessie did not seem to hear the pokèmon's query as she ran past the old "missing" signpost that displayed the faded image of young James in his Sunday's best attire. 

@--}--- 

"This is it," James said, pointing at the large gate surrounding the manor which he had called home years before. They were at the back of the manor where the distance between the gate and family gravesite was only a couple hundred feet.  Kat parked alongside the road and the two slipped through the slim bars of the gate.  James did not want his parents knowing of his presence at the estate in fear of his former fiancée's whip.   They walked to the gravesite where the preceding generations of James' family were in their eternal resting place.  James quickly spotted the elegant gravestones of his grandparents and kneeled down to say a quick prayer.  He then got up and walked past the giant headstones of his predecessors and headed directly to the small area dedicated to the beloved family pets.  Kat looked disdainfully at the gravestones as if being near dead people disgusted her.  James looked around but saw no gravestone that would mark the place where his loyal pet growlithe would lay.  

"It's not here…" he said simply, running his hand over the smooth granite of one of the headstones.  "This isn't right…."  He stood upright and started running towards the small mansion beside his own, hoping for the absurd idea that Growly was still alive and well and that the letter was a mistake. 

"James! Wait up!" Kat called as she ran behind him.  James ran through bushes and leaped over fences, getting scratched and bumped along the way but he didn't seem to care.  The small manor increased in size as he darted nearer. 

"Growly!" James called ahead, waiting for an answer he half-hoped for.  To his astonishment, an orange blur shot out the small house and knocked him over. A large, sloppy pink tongue greeted James as he laughed happily.  "You're alive! I can't believe it! I got a letter saying you were dead!" James held his friend's head between his hands, looking at him straight in the eye.

Growly looked him, puzzled and then suddenly growled at an unknown object or person behind James.  

"Hmm? Growly, what's wrong-?"  James started to ask before a loud crack ran out.  The air pressure from the gunshot made his hair flutter.  The next thing James knew, Growly had suddenly fallen limp in his arms and that an amount of a salty dark red substance had splashed on his clothing and face.  It took a second for the young man to register that it was blood.  James' cry got caught in his throat as he stared at his childhood companion in his arms.  The canine's blood ran down his hands and onto his jeans, staining both with a dark and sticky red hue.  James couldn't breathe as he just stared at the empty shell in his hands.  He was about to turn his head to call for Kat to warn her when the barrel of a gun was pressed against his nape- the same one that killed Growly, still warm from its last firing.  James swallowed.  It was true that he could not die if the rose was safe but the pain he experienced was the same as any other person's if not worse.  

"Pity.  He was a cute pet," a smooth and cold  female voice said from behind him.  James' heart fell.  It always seemed that the people whom he trusted the most were the ones who tried to kill him.  He closed his eyes and opened his mouth.

"Kat…" James croaked.  "Why did you kill him?"

"I am just following orders. Nothing personal," Kat said impenitently.  

"Who are you?"  James whispered, already knowing the answer as the words escaped his lips.

"A Rocket who is doing her duty," Kat replied, seductively into his ear, making him uncomfortable.  He felt a hand gliding down his back and along his hips.  James dared not to move or breathe. His stomach was in a tight knot which grew tighter by the second.   He felt a slender hand reach down into his pocket and his eyes grew wide as he saw the brilliant red of the rose as it was drawn from its hiding place.  James' breathing came in wretched gasps and he began to perspire. _So she was the one_, he thought, feeling the same icy grip that took hold of his soul that cold night when he first fainted.  

"Put that down," James said, half pleading, half threatening.  Kat pulled the gun away from his head and James was able to stand up and face her on unsteady  footing.  He cradled the body of his fallen comrade in his shaking arms.  Kat had shed her disguise and was now dressed in the manner of a class A top executive Rocket.  Unlike Domino's, Kat's uniform had an uncommon V collar which ended slightly above her breasts.  The skirt was the shortest he had ever seen as it barely covered the top of her upper thighs.  A simple bandolier hung at her hips with a single pokèball attached to it and James noted the small knife in its sheath bound to her left leg right above her bootline which ended slightly above her knees.  A sadistic smile played on her crimson lips. 

 _An assassin,_ James thought.  _She is an assassin... _the idea echoed over and over in his mind_._  "Put it down," he repeated.

She twirled the small revolver on her fingers casually as she examined the flower in her other hand.  

"Why?" she asked, toying with him.  James glared at the amber-eyed woman, feeling hatred for her build up within him.  He clenched his teeth and his lips pulled back in a snarl.  Never before had he felt so angry and betrayed and he found it very hard to contain himself.  It was a cruel irony that the one to bring him the most pain was not of the red-capped boy's group or of the justice department.  Instead it had to be a person from his side, or whom he used to believe was on his side before his childhood friend was shot.

"Put it down…" he said for the third time, anger clearly in his voice.  Kat felt heat intensify in the rose she held and she burst out laughing.  "PUT IT DOWN!" James screamed and as if on command, the rose burst into flame.  Kat stopped laughing and  looked at the fire flower and then coolly turned her attention back to James with an icy smile on her face; the type of smile that a snake would give someone before it bit its victim.  James was taken aback and the flames disappeared at the same time.  His ire had been replaced with fear when he saw that she had not let go of the specimen of fauna in her hand.  He had expected her to get burned, giving him a chance to escape. 

_ She didn't feel the pain? Only people with close contact would not feel it…_

"I know what you're thinking James," Kat smiled.  "Why on earth am I not being burned?"  She dropped the rose carelessly and watched Growly's body slipped from James' grasp as James shrank back in pain.  Kat kicked the dog out of the way towards the door of the manor.  James fell to the ground and recoiled as she stepped gingerly on the stem.  James looked at her as if she was a monster. She **was** a monster. "Only a person with deep connections would not feel it, right?"  She chuckled. " For a first-timer, you really knew how to give a bitch a good fucking." 

James cringed in response and then let it sink in.  "You're lying!" he screamed at her.  Kat tossed her long hair aside with a flick of the head.  

"Believe what you want but I got my 'deep connection' that way.  No sense in wasting years in developing a meaningless friendship like you did with that Jessie," she said.  James glared at her.  

"Don't you even dare say-!" James snarled and lunged at Kat's feet.  In a flash,  Kat delivered a kick to James' chin just before he touched his rose, snapping James' head back and sending him crashing into a pillar of Growly's mansion.  He slid to the bottom in a pitiful heap next to Growly's body.  

"James!" a familiar voice called out.  James mouthed the familiar name of his former partner-in-crime.

"James!" the voice called again.  James swore he saw the familiar sillouqutte of Jessie in the distance.  How she  found him was James' guess but seeing her increased the anxiety he had.

"Jessie…" James grunted.  "Jessie! Go away!" she couldn't get involved.  "Go away! Stay back!"  Kat grew irritated and picked up the rose, holding it before her like an unsheathed blade.  James knew what was to come and he shut his eyes and began crying silent tears. 

"Stop that," Kat ordered.  James fell silent, his eyes instantly dry.  Kat kneeled by the young man and lifted his chin and looked into his eyes which stared back at her.   "Good boy," she smiled. 

@--}--- '

Jessie's heart pounded as she neared the mansion.  It was the only logical place he could be without her.  She suddenly caught a glimpse of blue hair as she started up the small hill.  Meowth had been left behind in the dust as Jessie refused to slow down and was still by the front gates, waiting for Jessie- and James if she found him- to return.

"James!" she shouted.  "Do you know how long it took-" she slowed down quickly and halted as she caught a closer glimpse of the figure running towards her.  She took a step backwards.  James raised his head with the look of a psychopath on his visage.  His thin lips were curled back to reveal bared teeth and his wiry frame was set in a position to spring at her as soon as he got close enough.  The most frightening thing (Jessie hated to admit this to herself) was the look in his eyes-  they were full of bitter hatred.  Jessie was forced to turn and run as she saw the glimmer of a knife in James' hand.

Running…she hated running…

Jessie dared not to look back as her feet carried her towards the edge of the giant lake that was part of the landscape.  She ran along the old stone bridge trying to block out the blood-thirsty cries that tore their way out of James throat.  She swerved left when the bridge branched out into two segments and found herself at a small enclosed gazebo-like structure with glass filling in the metal framework.  Jessie could not find an alternate escape route and found herself thrown into a shelf full of potted plants as someone pushed her from behind.  Brown clumps of soil fell, covering her hair and attire as shards of pottery lay around her.  Jessie looked up to see James standing over her.  He swooped down, about to strike with the sharp blade.

Jessie screamed and instinctively threw her hands across her face in a gesture of defense.  A brilliant flash of light appeared and James held his free hand to shield his own eyes.  When it faded, James looked at her with a strange look.

 It was then she noticed that James' eyes were dull and glazed over, lacking any personal expression that reflected the person inside.  It was the look of a madman.  Something was wrong.  

"James…" Jessie breathed hard.  For a split second, James' eyes were clear again, alive with fear, but then he let out a pained howl. James shut his eyes and dropped the knife before clutching his head with his hands as if to rid his mind of horrible demons.  Jessie watched with horror as he sank to his knees and shuttered violently.  Jessie slowly leaned over to him. "A-are you alright?"

"Help me…" James struggled to plea.   Jessie recoiled in fear, realizing what sort of situation she was in as she felt the sense of dèja vu. "Help me…" he repeated desperately.

Jessie inched farther away from the blue-haired boy.  Of course James did not have scythes for hands but the disturbing dream Jessie had the night before sent chills down her spine as she saw the scene repeat before her eyes.   James snapped his head back up, looking straight at her with the strange empty eyes of his again.  Jessie scrambled to her feet. A female chuckle caught Jessie's attention and Jessie looked at the shadowed figure standing in the doorway with the blinding sunlight behind her.

"Kill her," Kat said with a haughty air, holding the rose out as if commanding James as if he were an attack dog. 

Jessie had no time to react before the blade cut through her shoulder down to the bone.  Jessie screamed.  The same white light burst upon the group and James was blinded for a moment.  Tears cascading and blood dripping, Jessie staggered into the glass wall, her tear-blurred eyes never leaving James and her left hand clamped over the wound in her shoulder.  James regained his dulled senses and advanced towards her. She shut her eyes as he sprang at her and held out both hands again as a reflex.  Without warning, a burst of light energy exploded in the enclosure simultaneously causing Kat to drop the rose and Jessie to catapult into the glass wall, shattering it.  The now-unconscious, bleeding girl and the glass shards fell into the calm lake below, sinking into its depths.  

"Jessie!" James returned to his senses the moment Jessie hit the water.  He stared at the blood-stained knife which slipped from his hands and clattered noisily on the cement floor.  Kat walked up from behind and placed a hand on James' shoulder, picking up the soul-containing flower.  

"Do not grieve for her, James. Come with me."

*********

Well well….now let's see how long it will take me to finish the next chapter! I am such a lazy bum. ^_^;


	5. encounters

**The Prince of Roses**

**Part Five**

**By Silver Vaporeon**

**Now this is where it starts to get interesting…oh hohohohoho. **

**What the heck?! *another* plot twist? "Come on," you say "why the hell are you jumping around more than a Mexican jumping bean that has eaten Akane Tendo's radioactive pudding?"**

**Mes**** amis, this is the start of the turning point of the whole fan fiction. Completely different than how I first intended the fic to be (heck, it was going to be a LOT shorter too). Now on with the weirdo story that puts everyone through the emotional blender of hell! Yay! =D**

*************

A filtering red trail of blood defused in the water as the unconscious Jessie sank slowly into the depths of the lake.  Her hair fluttered in the slow currents and bubbles escaped her mouth.  The wounded girl seemed out of place in such a tranquil environment such as the aquatic realm she was sinking in and many a puzzled magikarp nudged at her in curiosity only to swim quickly away afterwards. 

_"Mmm?" Jessie's eyes fluttered open.  An (upside-down) aquatic world met her eyes.  Caught in tall salvao weed,  Jessie held what remained of her breath and attempted to break free.  The persistent weed was of a stringy substance and it took nearly all her strength to pull one of them free.  A spasm of pain ran through her right shoulder and the remaining oxygen escaped from her mouth as she cried out in pain.  Sensing the danger she now faced, she frantically tried to use her hands to snap off the tall weeds that had woven themselves around her body.  The process was time consuming and her futile attempts grew frantic as she felt a lightheaded sensation overpowering her will to keep consciousness. _

It was strange how just a few days before Jessie had nearly taken James' life away…and now the tables had turned… 

It wasn't long before darkness claimed her again.

@--}-''

 "Yes…I applaud you for your excellent work, Agent," Giovanni praised Kat as he observed James suspended from two chains attached to the ceiling; his uncovered toes barely dangling above the stone floor.  A device consisting of a black band of thin light metal and several electrodes was placed around his head from the back of the cranium with the electrodes humming at his temples, keeping him unconscious and under control.  

"I took the liberty in placing the headset on his head as it is very tiring to hold the rose to simply keep him manageable.  I regretfully cannot drive properly while holding it in one hand,"  Kat explained the reason why she had placed the device on James' head.  She had shackled him by the orders of Giovanni.

"No need for apologies. I have what I want. Leave us." 

Kat gave a small nod and walked off.  As her footsteps faded into the distance, Giovanni looked at the rose in his hands and smiled.  His ultimate goal was within his grasp. 

"The game has just begun,"  He chuckled as people with their faces covered in their cowls of their robes filed into the dark room lit by a single torch.  

"Lord Giovanni," the leader of the robed figures addressed his superior.  "The boy is ready?"

"Yes, he is ready," the middle-aged leader said as he set down the rose on the mahogany table in the middle of the room. "He is ready."  Giovanni walked over and  lifted the metal band from James' head. James moaned and slowly opened his eyes.  When everything came into focus, they widened with fear and he swung his body back, keeping as far away from Giovanni as he could without much success as momentum just sent him back.   The shackles dug into his wrists as he twisted this way and that.  

"Get away from me!" he cried.  The robed figures quickly held him still; holding him around the chest and lower extremities.  

"No-! Let me go-! Jessie! Jessie! Oh, God!  Help me, please!" 

 "Your training will come soon.  The final round awaits, young James… "  Giovanni advanced towards his shackled victim who could only cry aloud.  

@--}-''

Jessie's consciousness stirred within her.  She swore she heard James calling for her but….

_"Jessie__…Jessica. Jessica Musashi! Open your eyes."_

Jessie's sapphire blue eyes fluttered open.  She found herself standing upright on a floor of marble.  She surveyed the room, silently marveling at the craftsmanship that went into creating such an elegant room.  A shining white marble mantle was to her right and a small fire danced in fireplace as if in attempt to outshine the light that was already illuminating the room from a hidden source.  Bookshelves of dark mahogany lined the walls where the fireplace was, filled with volume after volume of leather-bound books which glowed with the classic liter She looked down to see her figure clothed in a tightly-clinging blue silk Chinese cheongsam with embroidered silver and gold dragons that had diamonds for eyes snaking across the fine fabric.  Her hair flowed in waves, nearly floating behind her, free of the style she usually wore it in that defied the law of physics.  Her usual green earrings were replaced with small dangling ones with fine spheres of opal-like crystal  that sparkled in the light at the end of the tiny chains that held them to her earlobes.  Aside from the coil of silver in the shape of an oriental dragon that encircled her upper left arm, there was no other jewelry that adorned her figure.  Her feet were set in high heeled shoes of the same color of her dress.  She couldn't help but think that she was a princess or at least dressed in the manner fit for one.  She was aware that her shoulder wound did not hurt anymore and she craned her neck to see that it had healed over with only a thin white scar to mark where Ja- He had wounded her.  

Prying her eyes away from her healed shoulder, Jessie looked towards the source of the voice.  A man, perhaps in his mid-thirties advanced towards her.  He was rather handsome, his silver hair tied back into a thin ponytail that reached down to his lower back and his fox eyes of blue fixed on her.  A heavy cloak of dark indigo draped over his armor that seemed to have originated from feudal China.  He moved towards her with the ease of someone who was wearing silks instead of metal and walked with the debonair grace of an emperor. 

"I am glad to see you have joined me here, Child," he said at an arms length.  Jessie blinked, puzzled about the objectives of the man who stood before her. 

  
"Who are you? Why have you brought me here?" she asked. 

"It matters not. The only thing to know is that I am of the White Dragon Clan; the same as you."

White Dragon_…?_ Jessie inquired with a slightly raised eyebrow.  He made it seem like a fanatic religious cult that had borne itself out of nothing.

"There is no time...you must take up the Sword and take your place as being the sole warrior of the White Dragon Clan."  

"…..Huh?"

"There is a rivaling clan in this world; old enemies of ours. They have finally found their warrior.  You must destroy the warrior of the Phoenix."  The man had felt it necessary to explain that there was a fight she had to take part in but not the reason why? Jessie was infuriated.  

"What-! You never even asked me!" she said indignantly. "What the hell is going on? Why must I fight?!" 

"I've observed you from afar, young one.  You have many strong desires. You wish to obtain fame, fortune and love, do you not, princess?  How does it feel like to be the only one who could save the world?  Take the sword."

"Wha-?" Jessie would have scoffed if she weren't so taken aback. The thought of a complete stranger watching her run around half-starving and less than at her prime was enough to make anyone shocked and suddenly paranoid about past deeds.    

The man closed his eyes and lifted his right arm into the air.  His fingers twisted in a beckoning manner before he brought his arm down again close to his chest.  A ball of light gathered in his closed hand and his lips moved in the manner of chanting an incantation.  Jessie heard sound likened to the sound of pulsing energy and her eyes widened as she saw a beam of light energy heading towards her.  Without any time to react, she cried out in surprise as the beam circled around her neck and condensed into the shape of a necklace.  When the light cleared, Jessie saw that a glittering crystal pendent in the shape of a diamond-like prism rested around her neck, supported by a chain of miniscule links. In the center of the pendent, there was a small half-sphere of a gem.  It had no set color…or colors for that matter for they all swirled about in it like the mystic clouds that are contained in the crystal ball of a soothsayer. 

Normally, Jessie of Team Rocket would jump at the chance for fame and glory or having the title of a princess but something held her back.  She couldn't put her finger on it but something deep inside told her not to "take the sword" whatever that meant.  She stared at the stranger in front of her, questions buzzing back and forth through her mind so quickly that one could not be distinguished from another.  A second later, her mind reverted to her usual system of thoughts.  

A man suddenly comes out of nowhere and request that she fight for some Clan that she had never even heard of.  To top it off, the same man had been secretly watching her for who-knows-how-long and probably knows a whole lot more than she would have liked.  Or perhaps he was a liar.  In any case, she was not doing anyone's dirty work if there was no evidence to back up the fact that she would get anything in return.  She stayed silent, looking back at him, her eyes demanding an explanation. 

"Take it," the man repeated his command. 

"Not until you tell me everything I want to know," Jessie glared back.  The man did not answer.

Water started peculating silently upwards from the floor and Jessie felt herself standing in ankle-depth cool water quickly. The flame in the fireplace continued to burn even when water seeped into the hearth. The water continued to rise but Jessie did not break eye contact with the strange man who stared back at her with equal determination to make her obey his command as if he were a father silently telling a disobedient child to do what he wished. A full-grown man would have cowered under his gaze but Jessie continued to look back into his eyes, her spirit unwavering.  The young woman had a strong will and he knew that.  It was a virtue revered by the Clan and his approval of her nearly shown through his stony glaze.   The water was soon waist deep and Jessie finally seemed to realize that the water was rising from under her feet at an extraordinary rate.  Stubborn, she still did not look away.  Not even when the room was completely submerged and all other lights had disappeared and only the fire burning under the water provided the only light.  The man's sapphire eyes seemed to glow in the eerie light and yet Jessie persisted, silently demanding answers to her inquiries. She had to hold her breath….had to keep persisting…   

@--}---

_Giovanni was such a foolish man, the woman thought and tossed her long black hair back casually with one hand as she walked down the dim-lit hallway.  Her steps resounded through the small area.  Katherine "Kat" Suzaku knew what he was after and laughed at the fact that he would even consider that he had a chance in succeeding.  Giovanni Sasaki was a powerful man, yes.  A clever one, yes.  But he was like all the rest of his fellow men.  And like all the rest, he wanted the one thing that would separate him from all the rest._

He had submerged himself in old texts and finally found the book that would allow him to obtain it.  But Kat had known the book's teachings through the course of her entire life and she knew that her employer was making a tragic mistake in his haste.  James had the power to give him what he wanted, all right but Giovanni himself would not be able to gain a single thing from his laborious efforts.   

As the familiar florescent lights appeared at the end of the hallway,  she shook her head in amused pity.

It seems that Giovanni would have to learn the hard way.

@-}--- '''

Jessie awoke, sprawled on her stomach on the banks of the lake, her whole front covered with the wet mud she was laying on.  She raised herself and sat back on her knees and coughed harshly to rid her lungs of the water that had entered.  She managed to take in staggered breaths of oxygen that she had been deprived of for what seemed like eternity.  When her shaking abated, she started wringing out her hair, which was very saturated with water, in the manner that a person would a towel. 

_I could have died…  her heart nearly stopped at her first rational thought. Jessie tried to piece together the events that had happened.  She had fallen into the lake after Ja- He stabbed her in the shoulder and she was trying  to untangle herself when…_

She blinked and looked back at the large body of water.  Was all of that a dream, she thought. Something her oxygen-deprived brain had created when she nearly drowned?  She looked at her shoulder and saw that it was still healed in the manner as she had seen before.  Jessie quickly came up with several likely scenarios and none of them fit. A breeze stirred up and the soaked girl shivered and hugged her shoulders.

"Huh?" Jessie felt a metallic object poking at her arm and her right hand clutched at it, wrapping around a small object. She brought it to her eyes and felt it attached to a light chain which was around her neck….

Not quite willing to believe the thought that arose in her mind, she opened her hand and the crystal pendent that was given to her glimmered in the light of the setting sun.  Unlike her sodden blouse and shorts, it was not smothered in mud and glistened as if it were just recently polished.  The kaleidoscopic gem's colors continued to swirl about its containments as the pendent lay in her hand.  It seemed strange to have the strange object and the blood-rose on and in her palm.  She hadn't disturbed the mark since she had discovered it, hoping to gain some sort of solid sign for its purpose. As for the pendent, she had no idea what she was to do with it.  Half of her told her to keep it and another insisted for her to sell it for money. Yet another half urged her to hurl it as far into the lake from which she obtained it as she could which made as much sense as getting one whole from three halves.  

She had the evidence to confirm that the meeting with the man was real but she needed answers.  She hauled herself up, feeling extremely dirty and disgusted about the fact that her clothing and a considerable amount of skin was caked in an ugly brown sludge.  

Sludge…..

The thought of James hit her like several tons of bricks.  She was so preoccupied with what had just happened that she had nearly completely forgotten about him.  In acutallity, she admitted to herself that she** was trying to forget about him for the moment because the image of him slashing at her shoulder was still severely painful in her mind.  She  looked into the lake at the damaged glass gazebo-like structure.  It had never occurred to her that James would leave the scene after hurting her and Jessie immediately thought back to her dream from the night before to quickly dismiss it as quickly as it had come forth into her mind.  He wouldn't have done ****that.  But still, that woman disgusted her. **

That woman…

"She was controlling him like some kind of puppet…" Jessie thought aloud. "And she had the rose with her."

The scene back at the lighthouse finally made sense to Jessie.  Unknowingly, she was able to control her friend for a brief amount of time while the flower was in her hands.  His blank expression and his sudden silence after she had told him to stop in his tracks…he was helpless against everything and had no willpower to resist the commands of a person holding the rose.  

"He would have done anything she commanded him to…" It made her shutter that people could manipulate James in such a simple way.  

_Help me…_

Jessie spun around.  She swore she heard the familiar voice calling again.

"James?"

_Help me…_

"Where are you?"

_Help me…_

*********

**Whoo****! Another chapter down; probably the fastest I'll ever get a chapter up (I am a junior now, doncha know?).   I am not quite happy with it but then again that's how I was with every other chapter so…yeah. Maybe this chapter really does suck, I don't know.**

**Now you're probably thinking why the hell I wrote it like this. I know…there's a completely new concept that smacks you like a sack of cement and now you're going, "wah! You have two big ideas going at once! What kind of idiot writer are you?!" **

**I had intended to set up the idea of the WDC so it WOULD be confusing(yes, it will be cleared up. =P) but I didn't account for Jessie thinking about two things at the same time so yeah, I am aware that that is a messy attempt to make it make sense. Oy, oy.  Doesn't this sound like Sailor Moon or something?  o_O;**

**Please leave some feedback, pretty please?  I want to feel loved and appreciated like many other fanfiction writers do!  ::whine whine::**

**Until next time! **

**-SV**


	6. reencounters

It's been a while, huh? Yeah, I know. Junior year sucks. Lack of inspiration sucks too. Anyways, Here's Part 6, otherwise known as the "geez, how long do you have to make us wait?!" part. It gets more and more confusing, don't it? 

Ooh, here's something nice for you (sorry, ff.net is being stupid so you'll have to type this in.): 

(usual http) firebirdie.net (slash) por (slash) por.jpg

  
It's a title page of sorts using photoshop to mesh different screencaps together. I think it looks nice. Anyways, yeah, I think this fanfic will get its own page soon on my domain…if I ever get the time and motivation to do it.

I still don't own the characters. Stop suing me. Onto the story.

*********

  
The Prince of Roses

Part Six: Reencounters

By Silver Vaporeon

  
James was in trouble. 

Jessie lifted her fingertips to her temples, realizing the pleas were coming from within her head. She bit her lower lip as she tried to concentrate on the voice which grew fainter by the second. 

James, where are you? She thought, wondering simultaneously if she was suffering from head injuries. A small gasp escaped her lips as she felt a small spark of energy within her chest. It had come suddenly and it felt as if it were a separate conciousness had suddenly awoken within her. There was only one other time she had felt anything remotely similar to what was happening. Though what she received were not the disturbing emotions of heightened ecstasy as from before, the ones that entered her mind were just as shocking to the blue-eyed girl.

He was in pain. 

All of his raw emotions surged through Jessie's body like a merciless torrent of both ice and fire. The girl cried out and sank to her knees, taken completely off-guard. Forcing herself to focus, she shut her eyes tightly and concentraited on the images and sounds that came into her mind. 

There was the rhythmic thundering of drums that she could only categorize as a hammering force that was forgeign to her ears. It echoed the exotic rhyrthems known in the depths of Africa yet there was a subtle difference that told her that the history of the drummings did not have its origins in any culture on Earth. She saw figures dressed in dark crimson robes chanting in an ancient language as forgien as the hypnotic pulsation. They were crowded around a man dressed in a suit of vermillion in a haphazard half-circle. Jessie recognized Giovanni a second later when the dim flame in the torch he was holding suddenly grew and illuminated his face that grinned back at 'her' in an eery way. She felt what she recognized as shackles around phantom wrists that hung above her head. A sense of dulled fatigue joined the rest of the emotions that continued to tear through her body. Jessie grew alarmed. It was if his spirit was….

James! Her mind screamed. 

@--}----

James lifted his head weakly and opened his tired eyes to see Giovanni still standing in front of him. Realizing that the voice that he had vaguly heard asking where he was did not match any of the people within the room, he closed them again, tears threatening to escape. Death sounded like a good idea.

James! The voice called again and James' body gave a sudden jolt. The chanting continued on and since James had responded in a similar fashion during certain parts of the chant, the figures paid no attention to the jerking movement. 

J-Jessie? His inner voice asked, half-beliving what he had just heard. W-where?

I am still at your old home, 

Home? But…h-how…?

I…I know I am connected to you, James…I just… Jessie stopped, trying to structure her jumbled thoughts into something that would make sense. "I just need to figure.."

A small flicker of hope came to life in the young man and his heart raced. He could still be saved! He closed his eyes and concentraited on his friend's voice, feeling new strength flow into him. 

How are you connected to me? he asked. 

Remember that rose? I have a thorn from it stuck in my palm. …Could that be it?

Perhapes, James said, giving Jessie the impression of a mental shrug. I don't really know much about that thing myself.

Jessie's lifeforce emited a sensation of surprise and annoyance. How the hell could he not know? But it's yours!

James sighed and concentraited, his will to survive increasing but still weak from physical and emotional torment.

They bound my soul with it and I have to keep it safe otherwise I'd die. That's all I know about it.

The drumming continued, trying to edge its way into James' mind. He blocked it as much as he could, focusing on Jessie's presence within himself. The knowledge of that someone was out there who could save him gave him a stronger will to combat the overbearing combination of drumming and chanting that continued to pound at his brain. 

You're coming soon to save me right? he asked, hope obvious in his query. Jessie stayed silent and James felt her sense of uneasiness and his hope faltered slightly as her hesitation continued. Jessie-?

"Ah-!" James cried aloud as the chanting grew louder. The pain created by the uniform voices was unbearable. His conscious mind was being torn two ways at once and pain shot though his entire being. His body jerked around so violently that the chains that held his wrists clanked loudly. The metal dug deeper into his wrists, making him lose consentraion, severing the connection he had with Jessie. The leader of the figures brought his arm across his chest and then held it to his side to command the others to stop chanting. Only James' shuttering and labored breathing and the crackling of the fire were heard in the silent room. Giovanni whirled around and gave the leader a demanding glare. He knew the ritual by heart and the sudden halt in the ceremony needed to be explained.

"What is the meaning of this?" Giovanni demanded. "Why did you stop?"

The leader figure drew back his cowl. The eyes of ancient elder within returned the middle-aged man's glare with a stony gaze. 

"The man is stronger than expected. Someone is helping him," he said simply. Giovanni uttered a sound that could be registered as a sign of irritation.

"So does that mean that this whole ceremony was for nothing?" Giovanni said in a dangerously calm way, the torch crackling and burning in his hand. It had taken him years to track James down as the one he was searching for and longer still to perform the expensive surgery-like procedure that bound the rose and his master together. And when his goal was just within his grasp, a technical difficulty suddenly appeared and prevented him from succeeding. It was infuriating.

The ancient man stroked his white grizzly beard with bony fingers, his eyes half-closed as he was lost in thought. He then looked at Giovanni.

"We must break the connection completely. It is not easy.." he began to say before Giovanni opened his mouth. The latter reconsidered his decision to yell at the man but he restrained himself and kept quiet, knowing that there was more to come. 

"…But here is another way but we must subjugate him to pain. Severe pain. The body may not be able to take the severity of the process and the spirit is nothing without the body to supply it." The elder waited as he gave time for Giovanni to answer. 

"Do it if you must," he finally answered, thrusting the lit torch to the stone floor. "I don't care what needs to be done as long as I get what I want. And if that is the only way to get it…so be it." 

James' eyes widened as the ancient one spoke to his followers who suddenly surrounded him. He screamed aloud as their hands fought to keep his body still as they freed him from his chains. They were strong hands and rendered his wriggling useless. The lavender-haired boy opened his mouth to scream again only to be silenced another hand that seemed to belong to the strange mass of limbs and appendages. Giovanni turned around on his heel and marched out the door back up to the ground levels of the headquarters, paying no heed to the cries of the young man whom he had condemned. 

@--}---'''

It was as if someone had pulled the electrical plug that powered their connection. Jessie felt the disruption and jerked her head up. 

"James?" she asked aloud.  
  
Nothing.

"James?" she asked again, pressing her hands to her temples, as if searching for the right wave-length of thought. Only silence answered back. Jessie bit her lower lip, genuinely worried about her comrade. The disturbing surroundings….his pain that she had felt….the hope in his inner voice….

// You're coming to save me soon, right? //

His hopeful query stung at Jessie's buried conciounce. There was no bitterness or doubt in his voice. Only hope and concern for how long it would take for her to free him. She felt a rare sense of shamed selfishness for holding back her answer. She had nearly killed him once and she was angry at him for sleeping with another woman when she herself had no romantic relationship with him. And yet he held no grudges before or after the former… 

Jessie grew frantic, unable to connect with her friend again. It was like being blindfolded and snatching at empty air in search of a darting butterfree. But the insect was not within reach; she couldn't find his chi at all….she couldn't find him….

Come on, Jessica, this is no time to be worrying about not being able to talk with him! You have to find the idiot!

She threw herself back into the water, quickly rinsed off the disguisting and hardening mud that still clung to her body, emerged again and took off running in search of Meowth. 

  
@--}--- '''

James found himself tossed roughly into a cold and empty chamber that was echoed the interior of the solutary cells found deep within the underground passages of the Team Rocket Headquarters. However, the one he was to be occupying was slightly more spacious, being ten feet in length and five feet, six inches in height. They had given him the luxury of having enough room to pace around in or to have a companion join him in the cell. 

The landing was rough as he hit and slid across the floor. The rose he carried was tossed into the cell with equal care. James reached to it with a tentative hand, his fingers curling around the fading petals. As he brought it close to him, five petals fell to the cold stone floor. He closed his eyes and wept bitterly in the darkness like a broken tortured soul. 

"Stop that crying, James. It's quite unbecoming of you," a voice chastised him. A very familiar voice.

"K-Kat…?" James barely breathed. He lifted his gaze which met with the woman's steady condemning gaze. His eyes grew wide and he scurried into the opposite corner with the half-strength he still had, more than simply terrifed. "W-what are you d-doing here?" 

Her irises of amber seemed to give off the eerie iridescent glow of a feline's eyes, reflecting the little light there was in their shared cell. James found his breath hitching within his chest, finding himself more fightened of Kat than he was of Jessibelle or of Jessie during her "time of the month", whatever that was. 

"S-Stay away f-from me…I-I am wa-watching you…" he squeaked, maiking himself as small as he could in his pitiful little corner. Kat made no effort to move from her side of the cell. As his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, he recognized the shape of shackles binding the woman's wrists. She lifted a hand to her dishevled hair to brush away her bangs, the soft metailic clinking of chains accompanying her movements. 

"Watching me? You talk about me as if I am a murderer," she said, acting surprisingly...well, surprised. James glared at her with narrowed green slits. 

" 'As if' you were a murderer? You ARE a murderer! Y-you k-killed G-Growly…! A-and tried to k-kill me… a-almost got Jessie too and…and…you're a Team Rocket assassin for God's sake! I-I don't know how much blood your dirty hands have stained!" James screamed at her, as if bringing all of the acussiations forward would drive the raven-haired killer away from him. Kat blinked and then blinked again.

"A Team Rocket assassin, you say?" she asked, burshing the hair away from her eyes again, the chains clinking as if they were chuckling. 

"Y-yeah…" James stuttered, trying to keep himself from showing any more fear than he already was. Fear…or was it doubt?

"James, James, James…how can I have tried to kill you if I was down here since…I don't even remember when they put me down here…" Kat sighed, seemingly unable to put a date on her condemnment. James looked at her, somewhat shocked. 

"What are you saying? That there's two of you?" James inquired. Kat shrugged.

"They do have quite a few strange experiments up in the Team Rocket Labs. Perhapes they've mastered human cloning since Dr. Fuji passed away…" she commented rather than pondered aloud, as if the thought was not so outlandish as it would seem. "I am a scientist, James. Not an assassin….or at least I was one…until Giovanni thought me too involved and too untrustworthy enough in Project G…" 

"Project G…" James echoed, the words striking a chord within him. "T…that's the project that The Boss…"

"…had thrown you into," Kat interuptied his interruption. "Yes, yes, I know, James. I know a great deal about it."

"You know about it?" James asked with wide eyes. He crawled a bit closer to Kat, every hair on his body bristling. "Then you can tell me a-about it…why me? Why d-did they decide to tear me in two all those years ago? What is the purpose? What is the motive? Why was it possible?" Question after question tumbled out of his mouth like the running water of a faucet. It was only when Kat chukled again when he realized the absurdity of his behavior and he bowed his head, embarrassed. The raven-haired woman smiled at him in the dark like a mother who had witnessed her little boy discover the joys of frolicking in the fields. It was understanding and kind, not at all like the cold sneers that her counterpart had given James. 

"Those are a lot of questions and unfortunately, I cannot answer a whole lot that deal with motives and purposes. It was simply a job," Kat turned her head and looked at James out of the corner of her eye. "Now tell me, how is the rose fairing? Any lost petals?" 

James hand brushed the thin satin-like petals of his rose and he shuttered as a tremor, not unlike the one a person would experience when a hand brushes against a sensative area of the body, snaked up his chest. He scooped up the flower and regarded it, seeing its dim outline. 

"A-a few....ten at most," he answered. With a cautious finger, he traced the stem from top to bottom, running it over the delicate sharp thorns that contrasted so much with the silky frail petals. The digit found an empty spot where a thorn should have stood to protect the plant from harm. Instead, the area was rough and somewhat grainy. Then he remembered that Jessie had said that one of the thorns had been embedded in her palm and that it was a connection of sorts. Perhaps Kat knew how it worked. 

"Kat, one of the thorns is missing. I-I know it's in Jessie's hand because she told me that it got in there somehow and we talked when those guys were torturing me and well, I want to know how it works and stuff," James' usually more eloquent tongue failed him yet again and the words just jumped of his mouth without much editing. The raven-haired woman looked at him again and James could have sworn her eyes had flashed at him in the dim lighting. A trick of the light, perhaps. 

"…Jessie. You talked to her?" she asked simply. 

"Y-yeah, well, maybe not exactly 'talk'-talk but something like telepathy. I don't know, do you know how it works?" 

"Well, I have a hypothosis. When your body and soul were split, there was a great deal of energy that was released. We harnessed this energy to fuse the soul with the rose you have there. The human soul is a mysterious thing, dear James. It is like pure energy with a sense of purpose. It fills a body for a short time and when a person dies, it defuses out back into the universe like star dust. Or perhaps it goes to Heaven in the shape of its body. We had a field day with that one but we never finished that argument. 

In any case, the soul fills ever crevice, every atom of the body. The rose, you see, is an artificial body but fucnctions in the same manner, housing the soul. When the thorn somehow broke off…well, that means part of you is inside your friend. The soul does not like to be two separate pieces and so it tries to bridge that gap by creating a connection of some sort. Perhaps telepathy is a result of that, a strong sense of oneness between two people," Kat finished and sighed.

"Anyways, that's my thought." 

James scrathed his head. "Well, that made some sense."

"Yes, it doesn't make too much sense but then the whole concept of body and soul being separate doesn't make sense. And yet, we made it possible," Kat shrugged. James sighed and leaned against the stone wall.

"Lots of things in this world don't make sense, I guess," James muttered. "Sometimes they confuse me or I end up tumbling into depression. (God, I feel so weak.) But one thing's for sure, I am going to get out of here. Jessie said she's coming to save me." 

"She did?" Kat replied, looking at him out of the corner of her eye again. James shook his head.

"Well, she didn't say she was but I know she will. I trust her," he said sleepily and curled up on the ground. Kat leaned back against her own wall and her hand brushed against one of her small pearl-like earrings. 

"I see, James. I can see that."

James mumbled a tired response and closed his eyes. You are going to save me, aren't you?

@--}--- ''''''''

Meowth paced the top of the grassy knoll, his stomach knotted with anticipation. It shouldn't have taken her more than an hour, he thought, for Jessie was a master of stealth and speed when she was focused and yet more than three times the number had passed without a sign of the girl. He grew tired of waiting at the gate and found himself the tiny hill that he was currently on to wait for Jessie. He overlooked the west side of the mansion, able to peer through the uncuritained windows of the grand estate. A man with dirty steel-blue hair with a matching mustache walked past the large elegant frame that Meowth was gazing through, his acute eyesight allowing him to see the finest detail, down to the small insignificant stain on the man's ascot from his morning coffee. The man that was James' father possessed a debonair grace that Meowth had never recognized in any other human and he was not a man that many would not want to trifle with. The man suddenly stopped walking, perfectly framed in the middle of the window as Meowth looked on, a shocked expression frozen on his face. He started to cough violently and slowly lost the strength to stand without support and he leaned against the wall. The cat pokèmon grew worried as the man began to sink to the floor.

Meowth couldn't believe what his widening eyes were seeing. The man's hair had transformed into a mass of brilliant gold. Meowth leapt backwards, his fur standing on end. It was an abnormality, something unbelievable, something from the tabloids, nothing like the norm of the Pokèmon reality. 

The wife of the man soon arrived on the frightening scene and swooped down to aid her husband, obviously panic-strikken. She called to servents who were clearly far off for the pained expression that was etched into her aging beautiful face had such force behind it. They all dashed to their master's side, huddled around him, abuzz with confusion and concern. Meowth shook his head, trying to make sense of the strange situation. He paced back and forth, needing Jessie more than ever.

"Meowth!" Jessie called out. Meowth whirled around to see his comrade looking rather worried and dripping wet.

"Whatcha do? Decide to go for a swim? Come on! Get out the spy equipment and fast!" Meowth yowled. Jessie sighed iratly. She had been killed nearly two times in the same day and saddled with the fate of the world and of James and all the feline could do was bark orders. Well, yowl. In any case, the feline was more panicky than usual and that usually meant what he wanted had some importance to it. Swollowing her pride, Jessie ran up the hill and opened the clasp on her unattended bag which she had Meowth-proofted with a special lock. After undoing it, she rummaged through her sack. She brought out two headsets and a device that seemed to be a cross between a bullhorn and a satellite dish. Of course, its purpose was not to be strange-looking, but to amplify conversations. She handed these things over to Meowth who quickly switched the device on and brought one of the headsets to his large feline ears. He swept the device at limb's length, back and forth, until he found the right frequency, like tuning a string. Jessie laid herself on her stomach and put on her own headset.

"Meowth, what is going-" she started before Meowth hissed at her to be quiet. Jessie frowned but decided to listen in on the conversation which probably wasn't going to make sense to her. Though certain parts did tug at her memory....

["Darling, don't strain yourself. The doctor is on his way at this very moment!" 

"Nngh…Virginia…it's…it's not an ailment…it's a sign. My mother had told me that…this….nngh.."

"Master, you mustn't talk. You're so weak.."

"N-never mind that! This…this is an omen! T-the phonix awakens...two powers…engaged in mortal combat…t-the final round at the ends of the earth… 

"He has a fever, madam…completely delirious. That doctor had better come fast."

"Bridge to the stars…" ] 

"HEY! What are you doing here?!" a voice made Jessie and Meowth jump and they looked at the owner of the huge looming shadow that had covered them both. A large stocky man placed his hands on his hips. The sunlight bounced off a metallic spot on his beige uniform which read, "SECURITY" in large bold letters. Before the two could scramble or come up with good excuses, the man reached down and with hands the size of tennis rackets, he grabbed them by the collars and lifted them straight off the ground and with a second thought, slung Jessie's bag over his shoulder. Meowth pedaled at empty air, hissing and screaming for a lawyer. Jessie joined in as well, yelling at the guard about being so uncivil towards bird watchers. 

"Save yur excuses for the sir an' missus," he snarled and carried them to the giant mansion. 

@--}--- '''

"Where did you find the audacity to be spying on us?" James' mother, Virginia asked, fanning herself nervously with an ornate fan, looking off to the side. Jessie and Meowth sat before her in elegant chairs. Though the chairs were nice, there was an uneasy feeling the both had that they were being interrogated to death.

"We's were just tryin' ta find our pal, James, lady! An' then I saws ya looney husband fall ova' with funky hair. Is it a crime ta want ta see what da heck is goin' on?" Meowth spat before Jessie found the sense to clamp a hand over his large mouth. Virginia turned her full attention to the talking feline and then to Jessie who was still very wet and staining the fabric that covered the chair with lake water.

"…you were the two who led my dear son back here to get married to his fiancée, arern't you?" she stated. Jessie looked back at the woman.

"Yes, that is right, madam," she replied. "And we followed him back here today."

"James was here today?"

"He was here to pay last respects to Growly, madam…at least that's what he came here for."

"Growly? But he is still alive and well," James' mother said, puzzled. The servent next to her gave a slight cough and bent his head over to speak softly to her.

"Unfortunate news, madam. Dear Growly's chef had gone to serve his midday meal and had found his body on the front façade. Shot to death, madam," he said, looking towards Jessie. James' mother drew a hand to her mouth in slight shock and then looked at Jessie and Meowth, the former who was scowling at the servent for jumping to conclusions. 

"We weren't even here when he was killed," Jessie argued. "I didn't even go near his house; I went down to the gazebo where James nearly killed me!" 

"Wha-!?" Jimmy tried ta do ya in?!" Meowth broke free of Jessie's hand and stared at her. Jessie sighed. It was too hard to explain.

"James tried to kill a woman?" James' mother inquired. "Why…?"

"He was being controlled, madam," Jessie said.

"Controlled…" Virginia echoed. "But that can't be right…those scientists had said that they'd protect him from outside intervention when they did that awful Project G. experiment on him."

It was as if the world was on pause. Jessie was the first to speak.

"…you know about the Project…?" Jessie asked. James' mother nodded, looking more and more.

"O-of course. I provided the funding for it when they said that our darling James had volunteered himself for it."

Jessie stood up and looked the woman in the eyes.

"Tell me everything you know about it."

****************  
My God, that took forever and a half to do. Going through junior year in high school and lack of inspiration and intrest for writing fanfiction and other real life clauses are to blame. I don't like to leave characters hanging (and people actually asked me if I was to continue this. o_O) so I decided to continue during my Spring Break. The plot is still shaky and I got rushed near the end of this part but we're nearly to the point where it gets exciting! Yay! Now to see how long it takes for me to update again. I'll be faster, I promise

Until next time,

-SV


	7. inquisition

Holy Miltank! It's frikkin' **August** now! I'd like to thank the kind reviews I've gotten since the last update…you guys are the reason why I decided to tackle this fic again and I **will** finish it. I've been reading and watching Pokemon to get back into the swing of things so here we go!

**The Prince of Roses **

**Part Seven: Inquisition **

** By Silver Vaporeon**

The world within the majestic mansion held its breath as the words left Jessie's mouth. Meowth looked nervously between the two women. Yes, it was in Jessie's character to demand things of other people but to see the dead seriousness within her blue eyes was a whole different experience. James' mother, Virginia, didn't even bat an eyelash. As a woman of nobility, she had no choice but to remain civil and cool towards Jessie. However, the code of nobility did not obligate her to be kind. She gave a small 'hmph' and resumed fanning herself, peaking over the elegant whispy articuno feathers that trimmed the fan.

"And why should I tell a spy of such information?" she said, maintaining her icy composure. 

"I am not a spy, lady. James' life depends on it so you'd better start giving answers now," Jessie replied, a hint of annoyance in her voice and a set frown on her lips. 

"And do you have any evidence to prove so?"

To the last question, Jessie held out her hand to show the rose-shaped patch on her palm. The blood had hardened and attached itself firmly to the wound, keeping the bright redness from its liquid state.

Jessie's gaze hardened as her patience grew thin and her breaths came out ragged as she forced herself to keep the discussion limited to an exchange of words. Her body was chilled but her temper was hot and it showed through her eyes.

"I have a connection with him, lady; the thorn from that rose that made this wound is in my hand and we can talk to each other," Jessie breathed with a slight shutter. The cold air conditioning of the estate was cutting through to the bone as she stood dripping wet in a growing puddle of water that was soaking into the carpet.

"Such a cockamainy tale if I have ever heard one. You should be glad I won't press charges against you for trespassing on my properties for obviously, you have completely lost your mind to think I'd buy such a story. Nathan, please show this young woman and her pet meowth to the door."

"I ain't her pet!" Meowth screeched, his tail more wild than a corncob. But of course, his cry fell on deaf ears.

The servant - for Nathan was his name – gave a slight bow before picking a protesting Meowth in one hand and walking to Jessie's side, extending an arm out to her with distain. Jessie narrowed her fox-like eyes. If anyone would think she'd give up so easily on something so easily obtainable, they had another thing coming. Her mind raced with furious thoughts that darted around like angry beedrill. 'How dare she?!', they seemed to cry. 'How dare she not trust me when I am trying to save her only son!'

The tall manservant bent over to meet Jessie's gaze.

"Miss, this way, if you please," he said, as if trying to remind a young child to mind her manners and do what she was told.

To Hell with that. She wasn't some kid.

And she wasn't going to be told what to do when her way was right.

Before the man knew what was happening, Jessie had brought her leg up in a blitz-like roundhouse kick, hitting the back of his head. Meowth flew out of his grasp and landed on the man's face, howling and screeching about being treated like a stray. The poor servant was out cold on the carpet in four seconds flat with numerous scratch marks tic-tacking his face, leaving the middle-aged woman unguarded. Jessie regained her balance and started walking towards James' mother. She'd be damned before she left the house empty handed. James was counting on her to rescue him and she wasn't about to let anyone, nevertheless James, lay her down with guilt she couldn't overcome.

"Alright, lady. You'd better start talking now. I am not good with words and I **will** beat you up if I have to," Jessie threatened, slammed a fist into her open palm. The French doors behind her flew open and the gorilla of a security guard that had caught her before came barging in. He wrapped a large arm around Jessie's waist and pulled her close, forcing the air out of her lungs.

Her hands flew to the limb of steeled muscles that held her captive and she pushed and hit desperately against its grip, screaming curses and death threats. Meowth, still pumped with angry adrenaline from his last fury-swiping frenzy, flung himself at the guard, slashing left and right at open air. Before Meowth got close enough to lay a scratch on him, the security guard flung back his free arm and swatted him into a wall as if he were a pesky fly, elicting a cry of pain from the cat pokèmon. The feline slowly slid down the wall, which he had made a large indent in, until he landed on the ground, his feet over his head and his mind too numbed with shock to react before the heavy oak door next to him flung open and sandwiched him between itself and the plaster wall.

"What is going on here?" a baritone voice asked.

"Sir-!" the guard stood up straight, his arm still holding Jessie firmly as she wriggled like a fish out of water, still screaming at him at the top of her lungs until she was silenced by the guard's large hand sealing her mouth shut.

"Dear! You shouldn't be up at this time. Go rest yourself," Virginia insisted her husband, turning her back towards Jessie with a swish of her long skirts to walk towards her spouse. Jessie snarled again in frustration before she caught sight of James' father and couldn't help but stare.

His normal dark steel-blue hair was replaced with bright gold tresses that reached down past his shoulders, to the middle part of his back. It was a strange sight to see a nobleman in a formal suit and a hairstyle more fit for a rebellious male teenager than a man such as he. James' father looked over his wife's shoulder and noticed Jessie who was baring her teeth at his wife's back and trying to pull away from the servant's grip.

"What are you doing here?" He asked calmly and motioned for the large guard to allow Jessie to speak. Jessie drew in a large breath before looking at the patriarch of the household. 

"I'm here…to save my friend….your son…s-so you better tell me everything about this so-called Project G and you better tell me NOW!" Jessie lost control of her moment of calmness and the last half came out spat and snarled in angry tones only Jessie possessed.

"How dare you-!" Virginia scowled and slapped the magenta-haired girl with her closed fan so hard that a few feathers broke off and drifted lazily in the air and Jessie's head snapped harshly to the left from the impact. "I will not allow you – a spy and a liar- to speak in such a manner to my husband and the head of this household!"

"Virginia…enough," James' father waved his hand as if to tell his wife to hold her tongue. He made his way slowly to the center of the room, leaning most of his weight onto a cane that shone in the dim light.

He looked at Jessie. Or rather up and down her body, scanning every inch with his eyes. Being clothed in less-than revealing clothing consisting of her drenched khakis and her blouse, Jessie found no reason for him to be observing her like a lecher and felt rather violated. She looked down. Maybe the water soaked through her blouse or something. After a period of this body search, he spoke.

"This girl is no spy."

"I told you!"

He shut his eyes and sighed.

"Leave us."

The order was directed at the security guard who held Jessie and at Nathan were he conscious. Without protest or a puzzled look, the large guard released Jessie, swung the unconscious manservant over his broad shoulder and left the room, closing the French double-doors behind him. 

Jessie looked around, suddenly self-conscious in the presence of the parents of her friend. James' father slowly walked around her; feeling her hair, touching her skin and mumbling under his breath.

"Look, sir. I don't appreciate you treating me like a horse here!" Jessie snarled. "I want information and I want it now!"

She suddenly sneezed which echoed through the large room. 

James' father nodded sympathetically. "Yes, I apologize for my rudeness. I also see that you are not in the condition to discuss this matter at the moment. I'll see to it that you are run a bath and clothed in something…more suiting for you first."

The oak door from which James' father entered slowly creaked, swinging inwards from the wall. Meowth stumbled out from his place between said wall and door, looking rather frazzled.

"Meow…Jess, y'gotta stop gettin' me int'a these things…"

@--}--- '''

The ways of the opulent people never failed to astonish Jessie. 

After her bath in a bathtub that would probably would be better categorized as a swimming pool, she was presented with an elegant evening gown of crimson red. Refusing the help of the maid who brought it to her, she quickly dressed and explored the containers of beauty supplies that lined the marble counter. 

Applying makeup seemed to give the awkward occurrences of events a sense of normality to Jessie. It was a standard ritual done at least four times a day to insure that her beauty was heightened to its zenith at any given time. As she finished, the redhead smiled at herself in the mirror, feeling as confident as ever with her mask of makeup on. The pendent that still hung around her neck caught her eye; the half-sphere of ever-changing color catching the soft light and glittering teasingly, not unlike a small butterfree fluttering here and there to avoid the grasp of a curious child.

Jessie's smile fell a little. 'Take the sword', she mouthed almost silently as she traced over the pendent with her fingers, repeating the words of the strange being who had given it to her. She scoffed as an afterthought.

There was no time to be thinking of whatever stupid fight the old man had wanted her to take part in. She had to find James and that was the only thing that was required. Getting dragged into some celestial war that didn't concern her or her way of life was not on her agenda.

**_You have many strong desires. You wish to obtain fame, fortune and love, do you not, princess?_**

Jessie shook her head. Of course she did but fighting someone else's fight was not how she planned about reaching her goal. Her plan was to get James back, tromp around again as usual until she captured Pikachu, sell the freak rat and live off the profits. She dropped her hands to the side and gave herself a last look before venturing out of the lavish bathroom.

She found a pair of matching shoes for her outfit outside the door.

Yup, the rich folks never failed to surprise her.

@--}--- '''

"Meow, goils always take too much time to doll 'emselves up," a groomed Meowth with a diamond collar complained as Jessie entered the empty room. Jessie threw a warning glance at him and he quickly went back to running his rough tongue over his shining fur, the diamonds sparkling in the light as he arched and twisted.

"I'll take that as a compliment, you furball," Jessie replied as she swished by and sat herself on the elegant sofa that Meowth was also occupying. "I see you got the royal treatment too," she threw in. 

"I guess," Meowth said, wrinkling his face where a nose should reside and resumed licking at his body. "But Me-owth, I smell like Growley's shampoo and that's dog all over it."

"Get over it. You needed a bath anyways," Jessie snapped, feeling somewhat pleased that Meowth was acting normal more or less. Jessie sighed, wondering if she would be offered any food during her stay. Yelling and running around had really distracted her from the needs of her stomach and now that she had some time, the organ made good use of it by grumbling nonstop. Fortunately for her, a nervous young man called her and Meowth to the dining room where they both ate noisily and broke about every rule of table etiquette much to the dismay of James' parents –dressed in shades of red and maroon - who dined on the opposite end of the long table and talked amongst themselves.

Having filled herself with rich food, Jessie followed them back into the sitting room and made herself comfortable on the sofa as her hosts sat themselves across from her in elegant chairs. Meowth curled up next to Jessie, keeping his eyes on James' father who had trimmed his hair and attempted to dye it back to the usual steel blue color though the golden shine was still noticeable.

The man spoke first.

"You must forgive my wife for accusing you of being a liar. The moment I saw you, I knew she was in the wrong."

His wife's face strained to keep expressionless while Jessie looked puzzled.

"Well…yeah, you're right about me not being a spy but what are you trying to get at? I need information on Project G. Not how I'm innocent," Jessie started becoming impatient. 

"Yes, yes. The information. I see that you're not the patient one, child. And I am not the one that can articulate the complexity of this so-called 'Project G' so I bestow upon you copies of the documents that shall give you the answers," he called for a servant who immediately brought forth several thick manila envelopes and handed them to Jessie. "I do hope you have the time to read up on it during your stay."

"…..Meowth, you start reading these," Jessie quickly handed the top envelope to Meowth who protested until Jessie gave him her trademark "do-as-I-say-or-you'll-be-eating-through-a-straw-for-life" look. Mumbling under his breath, he pried one open and started reading through the tiny print. Jessie held the rest of the packets under her arm and stood up to leave for her room. Meowth stood up to follow.

James' father cleared his throat and the two stopped in their tracks.

"Now that that is…negotiated, there is something else that must be discussed. An urgent matter."

"Look, I know your son is important to you and stuff and he is to me too. I'm gonna get him back, no problem," Jessie said. "Now if you'll excuse us, it's been a very long day and I'd like to get some sleep." (Meowth grumbled that he was being made to stay up all night reading.)

"No. There is something else that you should think about as you sleep tonight, young lady," he said. Jessie raised an eyebrow.

"This is much more than rescuing my kidnapped son from Team Rocket."

He drew a deep breath. "This is about rescuing him from his true, destined being. For he shall bring this world down with him if he loses his identity."

"….what?" Jessie raised an eyebrow. "The whole world?"

"Dat's impossible. Unless Jimmy decided dat he'd a true flamin' moltres freak an' scares the whole planet t' death," Meowth retorted sarcastically.

No one laughed.

"…you don't realize that you are closer to the truth than you think, feline."

"Ya mean he really is a flamin' moltres?" Meowth asked with wide eyes.

"Not a moltres exactly," James' mother joined in on the conversation. "You see…we are decedents of an ancient tribe: the Tribe of the Phoenix. The blood runs pure in our veins. James….he is the reincarnation of The Phoenix; our warrior, protector and conqueror. But, if that power should awaken, and if the wrong person is to guide him…" she trailed off, looking at her husband who in turn looked towards Jessie, his eyes resting on the pendent around her neck.

"…mankind will only know the cold steel of shackles unless the descendent of the White Dragon Clan, his enemy, can defeat him."

Jessie's blood froze as she realized that he was referring to her. Jessie. Of Team Rocket. Her mind denied it as flashbacks of her meetings with the mysterious man of the Clan emerged. And as they came together, the words of the man fit together with the current situation.

**_There is a rivaling clan in this world; old enemies of ours. They have finally found their warrior._**

No, she couldn't be James' enemy…

**_There is no time...you must take up the Sword and take your place as being the sole warrior of the White Dragon Clan. _**

No! She didn't want to fight him! If he was supposedly all powerful, she'd be pulverized!

**_How does it feel like to be the only one who could save the world? _**

****The words of the mysterious figure of the White Dragon Clan rang in her ears. The whole world was practically driving down on her shoulders and Jessie felt faint. She would be the hero…the savior of the entire planet.

**_You wish to obtain fame, fortune and love, do you not, princess? _**

Yes, she did…but this was hardly the way she dreamed that she would obtain them all. 

The celestial war had become a personal one but what was the use if she didn't want to be a part of it? 

~*~*~*~*~

Wow. End of September. And I'm still not satisfied with the chapter. Senior year has shot and murdered my muse. ._.

Thank you all for continuing to read and review this fic! It's really great to know that people enjoy reading this and put up with my sporadic updating. 

Let's see if I can get time to write more soon! Next chapter will be a lot of reviewing stuff so that will be short so thus, you'll probably end up getting two chapters updated almost next to each other. I'm so sorry that this chapter is really really boring (which is why it took forever to write) and wasn't worth the wait at all, but I promise some action soon, alright?

See you later!

-Silver Vaporeon 9-22-03****


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